There wasn’t much offense Saturday night, but Sporting KC’s defense showed up
Sporting Kansas City and San Diego FC played each other for the first time ever Saturday night. It wasn’t quite a match to remember.
Sporting picked up a point in a 0-0 draw in its first road trip to the newest member of the Western Conference.
The match at Snapdragon Stadium was always going to be tough. San Diego sits in third in the Western Conference and has doubled Sporting KC’s point total (12 — 3-8-3 record) through 14 games played so far. Interim head coach Kerry Zavagnin said Sporting knew it would have to absorb pressure.
“San Diego is second in the league in possession. They’re high in their goals scored, and they create a lot of chances,” Zavagnin said. “There’s been games this year where teams have opened themselves up and paid the price.”
San Diego took 11 shots, four on target, and had 66% of the possession. Sporting only took two shots. Sporting goalkeeper John Pulskamp made five saves en route to his third clean sheet of the season.
Saturday night marked only the third time in 14 games San Diego has been shut out. It’s also only the fifth time San Diego hasn’t scored multiple goals in a game.
Sporting KC’s best chance came from Shapi Suleymanov. The winger found himself with space and an angle to shoot with his left; he cut inside and curled a shot off the crossbar.
Inches lower, and Suleymanov’s shot would’ve hit the underside of the crossbar and ricocheted in. Instead, the score remained 0-0.
Sporting KC had to weather the storm late and kept the high-scoring expansion team off the board. San Diego’s best chance of the second half came when Anders Dreyer found himself one-on-one with Pulskamp.
Pulskamp made the save with his body, and the rebound went straight to San Diego’s Luca de la Torre. But de la Torre’s shot was blocked from going into a nearly empty net by Robert Voloder.
Recently, the goals Sporting KC has conceded haven’t been ones in which you can find a lot of fault. That may have been an indicator that performances like this one — with the clean sheet — were coming.
Voloder credited the recent defensive performances to “good vibes in general.”
“Everybody wants to help each other defend,” Voloder said “One makes a mistake, the other guy next to him wants to make up for it. So I think we are having a great balance right now.”
The match concluded a wild road trip that saw Sporting play three road matches in eight days. Sporting traveled over 5,000 air miles for matches in Portland, St. Louis and San Diego.
Up next: Sporting hosts the New England Revolution, with New England coming off a 0-0 draw of its own. That match next Saturday kicks off at 7:30 p.m.
Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.
This story was originally published May 17, 2025 at 11:54 PM.