Red card, goalkeeping gaffe sink Sporting Kansas City in return to MLS play vs. Austin

It feels a little bit like Murphy’s Law at the moment for Sporting Kansas City: What can go wrong, will go wrong.

Within a six-minute span toward the end of the first half of Saturday evening’s match against Austin FC at Children’s Mercy Park, Cam Duke was sent off for two yellow cards and John Pulskamp had a ball go through both his arms and his legs and into the back of the net.

Sporting KC winger Daniel Salloi missed a penalty in the second half and Sebastian Driussi netted a 90th-minute goal to rubber stamp a 2-0 victory for the visitors.

Sporting fell to 5-14-5 and remains in last place in the Western Conference of Major League Soccer, while Austin’s trying to keep pace with conference-leading LAFC.

The aforementioned ill-fated moments of Saturday game will overrule what was otherwise a pretty even match. Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes lamented the lack of awareness from Duke, who received his two yellows in a four-minute span.

“When a team is struggling like we are, and then you are that undisciplined, it has an incredibly negative effect,” Vermes said.

Vermes was clearly frustrated with Duke’s lack of discipline in the moment, coming back to how much that sequence changed the game. And how many opportunities this season have been derailed by simple mistakes.

“It’s one of those things where you can spend time looking at the video, and you can spend time talking about it, but at some point, there’s gotta be a responsibility that you take when you step inside (the field) to make sure that you don’t make those mistakes that hurt your team,” Vermes said.

Sporting goalkeeper Pulskamp spoke about his own mistake after the match, calling it unacceptable.

“There’s no excuse for it,” he said. “Technically, looking at it, I’ve just gone over it a bit too early, legs not behind the ball. It’s unacceptable.”

Vermes shook up his front line. Willy Agada and Marinos Tzionis started, giving other players’ legs a rest from Wednesday’s match. Vermes had hoped to bring on Roger Espinoza and Erik Thommy in the second half, as well as Daniel Salloi late.

“It’s disappointing when you know that you had some difference makers coming off the bench, and you were getting ready to use them within less than five minutes … and that occurs,” Vermes said. “It’s a shame. Because I think all those guys would have been different, and the game would’ve been different if we had that opportunity.”

Sporting had seemed to find something it could work with in repeatedly catching Austin offside. The Verde had four goals ruled out for offside players, including one by VAR well after the celebration of an eventually negated strike.

Sporting’s Ben Sweat went the entire 90 minutes just days after going nearly 120 in the U.S. Open Cup semifinal at Sacramento. He’s barely a year removed from a torn ACL, sustained while he was with Austin FC.

“I want to do everything to help this team out,” Sweat said. “You know, we’re in a tough place right now, so I could care less what I put my body through. As long as I put the team first, help the team, then that’s what I’ll do.”

Sporting KC is back in action next Saturday, again at home, against the L.A. Galaxy. Kickoff at Children’s Mercy Park is set for 6 p.m. Central Time.

This story was originally published July 30, 2022 at 10:01 PM with the headline "Red card, goalkeeping gaffe sink Sporting Kansas City in return to MLS play vs. Austin."