Sporting Kansas City frustration turns into a lopsided loss to Colorado Rapids

Sporting KC entered Saturday seeking to win back-to-back games for the first time since July 2024. Last week’s 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy had the players feeling good.

But Colorado was lethal in its execution on the counterattack and capitalized on Sporting KC’s mistakes to win 4-1.

Sporting KC (1-3-1) will have to wait a little while longer to complete back-to-back victories — or find a second win in 2026.

“We cannot concede four goals and think that we’re going to go anywhere,” head coach Raphael Wicky said after the match.

He told his team that this result “hurts.”

“All we can do is recover, and then keep going and keep believing,” Wicky said. “We have shown we can compete much better than we did tonight, at least after the third goal.”

The match turned on the stroke of halftime. It looked like Sporting would get to the locker room level at 1-1 as Shapi Suleymanov scored in the 44th minute to cancel out Paxten Aaronson’s opener for the visitors.

But in a matter of minutes, momentum swung away from Sporting KC and right back to Colorado.

The Rapids had a corner kick in the final minute of stoppage time. All Sporting needed to do was deal with it, and the whistle would’ve gone.

The in-swinging corner kick was poorly dealt with by goalkeeper John Pulskamp, who tipped it onto the bar. Rapids midfielder Wayne Frederick was on the doorstep and sent it home to give the Rapids a 2-1 lead at the half.

“I think it’s up to us then in these moments to react, to stay calm, not to lose our heads, not to chase blind,” Wicky said, “to keep believing that we can come back like we already showed.”

Sporting pushed hard in the second half for an equalizer, and momentum appeared to be with the home club.

Rob Holding, who earned a yellow earlier in the first half, made a tackle on Sporting star Dejan Joveljic that Chiefs linebackers coach Brendan Daly would be proud of.

Referee Fotis Bazakos did not give him a yellow card despite the remonstrations from Sporting. Through the pool report process, Bazakos said the foul was “careless” in nature and “did not stop a promising attack.”

The restart of play didn’t go very far before the Rapids turned up the other way, and Rafael Navarro made it 3-1.

“I have to watch it again, but I think it’s too easy to play through us there,” Wicky said. “After the (goal to make it) 3-1, everyone was down. … We cannot be that open then after that.”

Aaronson made it 4-1 in the 75th minute to extinguish any chance of a Sporting KC comeback.

With the international break coming up, Sporting will have the opportunity to get healthy, although it lost defender Wyatt Meyer on Saturday night to a knee injury.

Justin Reynolds made his return to action late in the second half. Ian James, Jayden Reid and Zorhan Bassong are players Wicky hopes to have back by the time Sporting next plays.

“We will give them a few days off over the weekend, which is normal in the national team break,” Wicky said. “And then we start preparing for Salt Lake.”

Jacob Bartlett added that the team needs to use the break to sharpen the little details.

“Obviously the result is tough,” Bartlett said. “But I think we’re going in the right direction the way we’re playing and the process and idea Coach has for us. So like I said, just sharpening things going into the break.”

Up next: Sporting KC won’t return to action until April 4, when the club travels to play Real Salt Lake.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.

This story was originally published March 21, 2026 at 10:03 PM.