Sporting KC eliminates top seed St. Louis in MLS playoffs stunner. Here’s what’s next
In the budding rivalry between Sporting Kansas City and St. Louis City SC, it was St. Louis who threw the first punches during the regular season.
But Sporting landed the final blow.
A knockout punch at Children’s Mercy Park.
Sporting KC eliminated St. Louis, the top seed in the West, from the MLS Playoffs with a 2-1 victory in Kansas City on Sunday night. Sporting completed a Round One sweep over the West’s top seed after needing a win on the final day of the regular season just to sneak into the Wild Card round.
Up next for Sporting: the Western Conference Semifinals. KC will meet the winner between the Houston Dynamo and Real Salt Lake.
But first, there’s some time to celebrate, as Sporting players did in front of a crowd of 21,650 at Children’s Mercy Park. And that continued into the locker room, which looked nothing like it did when Sporting began the season winless through 10 matches.
At one point during the early stretch, Sporting KC captain Johnny Russell stood in that same locker room and said, “I genuinely don’t know how to fix it.”
Standing in nearly that same spot on Sunday, he answered questions while beaming with pride and joy.
“I couldn’t be more proud to be a part of this team, a leader of this team,” Russell said. “You want to play in times with guys like this surrounding you. Just to be a part of this when the guys have done everything they have done to turn this season around, it’s honestly up there with the most enjoyable things in my career.”
Sporting’s remarkable turnaround is no doubt one for the books. But when nine out of 14 teams make the postseason, simply making the playoffs can feel like a bare-minimum expectation.
It’s partly why Russell sat in front of media members after clinching a postseason spot on decision day and said, “We haven’t done anything yet.”
Well, how about now?
After drubbing St. Louis 4-1 on the road, Sporting KC returned home, almost desperate to end their rival’s season in front of their home crowd.
But forget the rivalry, Sporting manager Peter Vermes said, “It’s about the playoffs.”
“All the other stuff goes off to the side,” Vermes continued. “We gotta win the game. And that’s what’s most important. Because if you win the game, all the other stuff lines up as well.”
Here’s how they did it.
After Sporting’s Game 1 win, St. Louis appeared to make a strategic change, attempting to go over the SKC defense rather than attempting to play through it. The opening kickoff, in fact, went straight to St. Louis’ goalkeeper, who booted the ball forward into a host of players waiting around the penalty area.
The strategy, however, didn’t work. And Sporting eventually became the aggressor at home.
For the final 25 minutes of the first half, Sporting poked and prodded the St. Louis defense until the breakthrough moment, just before halftime.
Logan Ndenbe found himself in acres of space with time to shoot. He scored past Roman Bürki, a finalist for goalkeeper of the year.
Ndenbe also scored in SKC’s first game against St. Louis in the postseason.
The visitors made a few changes at the half to try to shake things up, but it was to no avail. In fact, Sporting punished them with a second goal — the winning goal.
St. Louis attempted to swing in a corner kick, which SKC’s Andreu Fontas helped defend. A collection of Sporting players helped win the ball back in the midfield, setting up Russell on the break.
Russell played a ball to Gadi Kinda, who charged the keeper. Instead of shooting one-on-one, he laid a pass off to Daniel Salloi, who tapped the ball into the net at the back post.
St. Louis continued to fight for its season, and the club got one back thanks to an attempted cross from Célio Pompeu that was lofted up high and flew over Tim Melia into Sporting’s net.
Sporting had to survive 12 minutes of stoppage time, clinging to a 2-1 lead. But Sporting KC finished off the game (and 2-0 series sweep) to send their I-70 rivals packing.
The clean sweep, much less upsetting top-seeded St. Louis, seemed like a far-fetched idea before the series started. But Vermes called back to his message to the team when most people had counted it out.
“At the end, the only people that are gonna get us out of this is us,” Vermes recalled saying. “And right now, if we’re the only ones that believe that, no problem. We’re the ones that are gonna make it happen.
“And credit to those guys, they did.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2023 at 6:34 PM.