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MLS Sporting Kansas City

Sporting Falls 3-2 to LA Galaxy

March 23, 2024 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Sporting Kansas City News Release


Sporting Kansas City (1-1-3, 6 points) surrendered a two-goal lead for the club's first loss of 2024 in a 3-2 setback to the LA Galaxy (2-0-3, 9 points) on Saturday at Children's Mercy Park.

In a wild battle between unbeaten Western Conference teams, Sporting rode a dominant first half to a 2-0 cushion behind goals from Nemanja Radoja and Willy Agada. However, the Galaxy struck back in the late stages with three goals in a fatal eight-minute span that gave LA just its second win in Kansas City in 16 years.

Manager Peter Vermes made two changes to the Sporting lineup from last weekend's 2-1 home win over San Jose. After recovering from a minor ankle problem, Remi Walter returned in place of injured midfielder Memo Rodriguez, while Agada entered for injured captain Johnny Russell. The new-look XI was deployed in a 4-2-3-1 formation with fellow striker Alan Pulido underneath Agada, marking the first time the duo had started together for Sporting. Between the posts, goalkeeper Tim Melia notably tied current assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin for fifth in club history with his 237th regular season start.

The hosts threatened thrice within the first 12 minutes as Daniel Salloi-making his 57th straight regular season start, the fifth longest such streak in club history-curled a shot inches over the bar before Agada and Pulido forced saves from LA goalkeeper John McCarthy, the latter with an acrobatic bicycle kick attempt.

Radoja fired Sporting ahead in the 34th minute. After the Galaxy failed to clear a searching ball into the box off a short corner kick, Salloi settled into possession on the left edge of the penalty area and centered the ball low into the path of Radoja, who slotted past McCarthy at point-blank range for his first professional goal since Nov. 2, 2019 when he scored for Levante in a Spanish La Liga win over Lionel Messi and FC Barcelona. Radoja almost added a second goal five minutes later but planted his header a foot high off another set piece delivery.

Sporting laid siege on the Galaxy goal in the final moments of the first half and were duly rewarded on the brink of intermission. A minute after Agada had a shot deflect marginally wide, the Nigerian opened his 2024 scoring account with a pinpoint finish into the left corner off Salloi's teasing cross from the left wing. Agada bagged the 50th goal of his professional career on the play and now has 10 goals in 10 regular season home starts at Children's Mercy Park since his arrival to Kansas City in 2022. Salloi, meanwhile, recorded the fifth multi-assist game of his MLS regular season career.

Vermes' men had multiple opportunities to kill the game off early in the second period, with Pulido narrowly missing the mark twice and McCarthy producing a big save to deny Agada on the doorstep after Erik Thommy had done well to deliver a low pullback pass from the endline.

The game turned south for Sporting at the 72-minute mark. Seconds after Melia produced a brilliant fingertip save to thwart LA striker Dejan Joveljic, the Galaxy cashed in on a set piece that Sporting was unable to clear. The ball pinballed around the penalty area and fell to the thankful foot of defender Eriq Zavaleta, who bundled a shot into the right corner to cut LA's deficit in half.

The Galaxy restored parity three minutes later, and some 60 seconds after seeing Joveljic have a goal disallowed for an offside infraction. This time the goal stood as the forward received an incisive through ball from Riqui Puig and finished past Melia for his league-leading fifth goal of the season, becoming the second player in MLS history to score goals in each of the first five games of a regular season.

LA completed its rally in the 80th minute when Mark Delgado drove home a low cross from newcomer Gabriel Pec. Although the strike was initially disallowed for offside, VAR Shawn Tehini prompted referee Aleksandar Zhelyazkov to take a second look and the goal was given to make the score 3-2.

Sporting will look to bounce back next Saturday, March 30, with a trip north of the border to face Toronto FC (3-1-1, 10 points) at BMO Field. Kickoff is slated for 6:30 p.m. CT with live coverage on MLS Season Pass via Apple TV.

QUOTES

Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes

On changing formations...

With a bunch of the guys that are out, it was just the best way to use the team. I think the unfortunate thing is you don't get the result. But, all in all, we played very well in the formation. We created a lot of chances. I thought we were very dangerous. I thought it was difficult for them for most of the game, but sometimes that's the game. That's the way it goes.

On using multiple formations in the future...

Obviously, we're capable. We're capable. We have the players to be able to do it. And today was, I thought for the majority of the game, it was very good. The guys played it well with our possession and our build out. Everything went well. We created a lot of chances tonight. There's no doubt. So from that perspective, very good. The difficult thing to swallow is that we actually played very well tonight. And like I said, we created a lot of chances to not finish off the game. We probably should have been up 3-0 if you get one of the counters in the first half, because we had a few. I'll give them credit on a couple of them. They did a good job of delaying the situation. Even the one when Tim (Leibold) went on the break, he had (Erik) Thommy to his right, but it was tough because they did a good job. It's just a shame that he couldn't get off a clean enough shot. I think he made the right choice at the end. We just had a couple chances there that just didn't fall. I'll say it again, I thought we were good. Unfortunately, that 10-minute span just crushed us.

On his message to the team...

The whole idea is to win. You have got to manage situations. You can't just chalk it up to just 10 minutes. You have to realize also that in those 10 minutes, you also could have done something different. Even after the second goal, you could have done something. You lock something down. Our sport is a little different. It's not like I call a time out to regroup everybody and take the steam out. The game is going. What's interesting is that, normally speaking in a situation like this if normally we're in our 4-3-3 and we're playing with a holding midfielder, I'd probably move to two late in the game just to kind of clog the middle. And we were already in that, so there really wasn't much of a change there. You have got to give credit to them as well. They played some good stuff. The sky is not falling, but we gave away a really big opportunity today.

On containing Puig and Paintsil...

I think, for the most part, the team played very well. I think it was that 10-minute span that I think (Riqui) Puig really got free, if you will. I said, even talking last week that he's one guy that you're trying to deny the ball from. He pushes their offense, he pushes them. He's a very positive, aggressive player. He's going to take chances and you have to be aware and alert to that. I think, for the most part, we really were. We just fell asleep on a couple of situations. I'm not going to say it was fatigue because I think you also look at the weather. The weather is the weather. We had a lot of the ball. We had a lot of chances. So we're putting them under pressure for most of the game. They're in the same world we are. I thought Tim (Leibold) did a good job against Paintsil. I really did. I think he's a handful. And for the most part, again, we did a good job. It's just that 10 minutes.

Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia

Thoughts on the match...

We just got picked apart a little bit. I don't even know if we really lost our shape in the middle. I just went back and looked at the goals. We're just kind of getting caught following one guy. Another set piece goal, I'm not happy about that. It sucks because we did so many things well in that game. We dictated a lot of the way that we wanted to play and we took a lot of their strengths away for very long stretches of the game. Ultimately, you can't blow a 2-0 lead at home. Even if we have got to sit in our own 18 and block shots, do whatever, that's just got to be kind of the example. When we're up at home, we have got to win at home.

On conceding from a set piece...

I don't know. We have got to go back and look at it. I think we faced a lot of corner kicks today. I don't even know how many we faced, but it felt like we had at least 10 or 11 of them. When you have guys that have quality to serve the ball in, they're going to get something off of it. So I don't want to take away that we blocked however many of them and we were organized and took care of them defensively. But as a goalkeeper, you never want to let up set piece goals because it's a structured play where everyone kind of has a role, including myself. It's just one I want to take a look at, see what happened, see what we can do better and make sure it's not happening again.

On the message to the team...

It's still early in the season. I think we played a little bit of a different formation today. I thought that was really successful. I thought Willy (Agada) had a really good game. I thought Alan (Pulido) dropping underneath and almost acting as a false nine or 10. (Erik) Thommy out on the wing and Daniel (Salloi) on the wing. I thought Remi (Walter) and (Nemanja Radoja) were covering a ton of space. I think, for a lot of the game, we were pretty organized defensively. That's something we've been this year. So there are a lot of positives to take away from this. I think that we just have to focus on the fact that it's so early in the season. We're up 2-0. You can't lose at home going up 2-0, but we also were up 2-0 and we had to have quality to get to up 2-0, so we need to focus on that.

Sporting Kansas City defender Jake Davis

Thoughts on the match...

Obviously, we were dominating the game. First half, we won. They scored three goals in 15 minutes or very close to that. Just lapses in the game I guess that, in the end, punished us. We can't let that happen at the end of the day. Three lapses, three goals. It's not what we want. There's a lot to take from this game.

On the takeaways...

There's a lot of positives from the game. Obviously, it's a bad result, but good things happened in the game and things that we need to take a look at in the film and make sure that we're making sure we don't let happen again. I mean, I can put my hand up for my part to play in all the goals, but I think everyone obviously is very open to recognizing what went wrong and making sure we don't let that happen again.

On the change in formation...

Erik (Thommy) and Johnny (Russell) are different players. Erik worked his nuts off like Johnny and both are great players. I enjoyed playing with both of them at the end of the day. Obviously, it was a different formation but, for the most part, I try to stay positive. I thought him and I did well together. That wasn't the issue. It was more defensive lapses.

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