Sporting KC Suffers 4-1 Loss to Colorado
MLS Sporting Kansas City

Sporting KC Suffers 4-1 Loss to Colorado

Published on March 21, 2026 under Major League Soccer (MLS)
Sporting Kansas City News Release


Sporting Kansas City suffered a 4-1 loss to the Colorado Rapids on Saturday at Sporting Park.

Shapi Suleymanov scored the lone goal for SKC in the defeat as the visitors prevailed behind a brace from Paxten Aaronson to go along with a goal from fellow Designated Player Rafael Navarro and the first goal of Wayne Frederick's MLS career.

The Rapids struck first in the 12th minute on a scoring sequence that started with a clever backheel from Navarro inside his own half to spring Darren Yapi down the left touchline. The 21-year-old Homegrown Player carried the ball forward from the halfline into the penalty area and squared the ball for Aaronson to set up a first-time finish from 12 yards out.

Yapi was involved again in the 19th minute with a pair of golden chances to double the Rapids' lead, first being turned away by Sporting KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp in a one-on-one situation and then making minimal contact on the rebound as the ball bounced at the top of the six-yard box with an open net in front of him.

Sporting Kansas City would pull level in the 44th minute as Suleymanov scored his first goal of the season with a superb near-post finish past Zack Steffen. Calvin Harris, facing his former team, provided the primary assist and Lasse Berg Johnsen earned the secondary assist, giving the Norwegian international a goal and two assists in his first two appearances for the club.

The momentum from the equalizer was shortlived as Colorado regained the lead moments later in first-half stoppage time as a pair of Trinidad and Tobago internationals connected for the game-winning goal. Dante Sealy, the son of former Kansas City Wizards forward Scott Sealy, delivered a corner that came off the hands of Pulskamp and ricocheted off the crossbar before being pushed across the line by Frederick.

Colorado would seal the victory with a pair of second half goals just four minutes apart. Navarro, who led the Rapids in scoring each of the last two years, added his team-best third goal of the season in the 71st minute with a sliding finish from close range. Aaronson, a member of the U.S. Olympic Team in 2024 and Gold Cup squad in 2025, then scored his second goal of the night in the 75th minute on an assist from Navarro, who is one of only two players in MLS with three goals and three assists through the first five weeks of the season.

Saturday's result snapped Colorado's six-game road losing streak dating back to last August, while Sporting is now winless in six straight regular season home games - equaling the longest such run in club history - heading into the next week's international break.

Sporting Kansas City will be back in action at 3:30 p.m. CT on Saturday, April 4 with a road trip to take on Real Salt Lake at America First Field in Sandy, Utah. The Western Conference match-up will be available to watch live on Apple TV and the rematch of MLS Cup 2013 will be shown in pub partners across the Sporting Pub Network.

QUOTES

Sporting Kansas City head coach Raphael Wicky

Thoughts on the game...

I think we started okay. We started fairly well with a big chance with Calvin (Harris) and then the game was a bit open with moments for us and moments for them where they had chances as well. They did well. I thought we were in the game. We were competing. We were in the game. We came back to 1-1. Of course, it hurts. You score in minute (44) and then you concede in minute 45 or whatever. That's obviously a big disappointment for everyone. I still believe that you're in the game after that and I think it's up to us in these moments to react, to stay calm, not to lose our heads, not to chase blindly, and to keep believing that we can come back like we already did and showed. I think then the killer moment is the 3-1, right? I have to watch it again, but I think it's too easy to play through us there and we just made a sub, I think we had momentum. We actually had a few good moments before that. That is obviously then a tough one to swallow. After the 3-1, I think everyone was down and we have to watch that. We cannot be that open then after that.

On the second half foul on Dejan Jovelijic...

I thought it was a foul where you can give a second yellow but, after losing 4-1, I don't think I want to start talking about the referee too much. Starting with us, I don't know how much it affected the team. I cannot give you an answer to that. Before the 3-1, it was too easy. We have two chances to win this ball, to win the 50-50, to win the duels. We don't and then they score a goal where I think collectively we can do better and have to do better. It's too easy.

On the team's chemistry...

The changes we have to do every single week is obviously not making it easier, but again, I'm not going to sit here now and start looking for excuses. After the last game in (LA), we knew that Jayden Reid is probably going to be out because internally we knew -- I don't know if you guys have seen the picture, which was online with his ankle -- we knew after the game that it's not going to look good. Immediately then I need to think as a coach, okay, what are some solutions? We don't have a player to play in this position, Zorhan (Bassong) is not ready, so we try to find solutions and not problems. Of course, it doesn't make it easy if we can never play with the same team. I think the expectation is that we try to find solutions and not problems. That's part of my job.

On the club's defense...

I think certain moments, like the first goal, are not counterattacking. We are there. You have to win the duel. You have to be harder. You have to follow your man. That has nothing to do with counterattacking. When counterattacking becomes dangerous, it's quite often that either you don't win a duel or you're not well organized in the rest of your defense. I have to see these moments and the rest of the defense, especially at the end, was obviously not good. That's something we for sure have to get better. We cannot concede four goals and think that we're going to go anywhere, but we will work on that. This one hurts. Like I told the team inside, this one hurts but all we can do is recover and then keep going and keep believing what we have shown. We can compete much better than what we did tonight, at least after the third one.

On how physical the game was...

They have to be used to it and that's what we also want to do. We want to also try to play physically, especially against a team like them, who try to play out. You've got to be in the duels, and for moments we have been, but for moments we have not been. No, I don't think that should affect you much. The only thing that affects you is if you lose your emotions. You have to stay in the game, but I don't think that was the problem of tonight.

On Colorado's offense...

We knew what they wanted to do. We tried to prepare, and now I have to watch again and see what we could have done better in certain moments. There were moments where we won the ball and also created something. Even when you press and try to press, there are always moments where the team plays through. That doesn't mean that you have to then concede a goal. They did this fairly well, consistently, and I think our press consistently has not been the way we wanted. We were in there. We competed and we were 1-1 back. We conceded that second goal and we're still in the game and then the third one really hurt.

On Colorado's third goal...

I have not had time to look at it. I will also watch everything. This is not a culture where we win because of one guy or lose because of one player, not at all. We win together, we lose together, we stick together and we keep going. Today, I think overall, it was not good enough.

On the international break...

I hope that with (Wyatt) Meyer, this is not something bad. I haven't seen him or talked to him. I have to see what it is. This will be, I think, the fourth injury in five games if I'm not mistaken. Where we would need to change, I hope this is not something bad for him. The focus is obviously now to recover, then to have a good training week, then again we give them a few days off over the weekend, which is normal in the international break, and then we start preparing for Salt Lake. Hopefully by then, (Zorhan) Bassong, Justin Reynolds, Ian James, and Diego (Borges) are further in their physical development, so that they can be available to start in Salt Lake or play more than just 15 minutes.

Sporting Kansas City midfielder Jacob Bartlett

On conceding just before halftime...

I think obviously getting the goal back to tie it before half was a huge momentum shift for us. Obviously we don't want to concede, but sometimes it's out of our control and that's just reality. I think going into half, we dealt with it, moved on from it, had a good game plan for the second half, just couldn't execute it.

On the events preceding Colorado's third goal with the Rapids escaping a second yellow card...

It's out of your control, again. That's something that's part of the game. Not everything's going to go in your favor, so we just have to control what we can control and I think there's definitely things we need to clean up, myself especially, and I think we're going to do that, especially going into this break.

On dealing with Colorado's transitions...

I think we tried to create a lot of chances. At times with our rest defense, I think we have to understand where their attackers are, they're very pacy wingers and they're able to get on the break pretty fast, as you saw. So I think just organizing ourselves, especially when we're higher up the field, like I said, there's stuff we're going to sharpen during this break.

On what the team needs to focus on during the upcoming international break...

I think we showed it against LA, we can do it and I truly believe we will. Like I said, it's just sharpening little details. I think little mistakes throughout the game, you'll see those slowly fade away. I don't think there's anything to kind of - obviously the result's tough, you never want to lose - but I think we're trending in the right direction, the way we're playing and the process and ideas. So I think, like I said, just sharpening things going into the break.

On how the team is dealing with injuries every game...

I think it's always the next man up mentality and we have the players that do that. Everyone's ready to play and I think Kwaku (Agyabeng) came on and played tremendously - worked his ass off, excuse my language. Worked his butt off. I thought he played a great game. Like I said, it's the next man up and I think everyone has that mentality and that's only going to help us moving forward.

Referee Fotis Bazakos (via MLS Pool Reporter)

Why was the foul by #6 Colorado (Rob Holding) on #9 Sporting KC (Dejan Joveljlic) in the 68th minute not a yellow card?

The level of contact was determined to be a careless foul. After the foul, the ball immediately rolled to Colorado #29, so this did not stop a promising attack.

Sporting Kansas City: John Pulskamp; Jake Davis, Jansen Miller, Ethan Bartlow, Wyatt Meyer (Kwaku Agyabeng 52'); Lasse Berg Johnsen, Jacob Bartlett (Taylor Calheira 85'), Manu Garcia; Calvin Harris (Justin Reynolds 85'), Dejan Joveljic (C), Shapi Suleymanov (Stephen Afrifa 70')

Subs Not Used: Stefan Cleveland, Diego Borges, Pierre Lurot, Cielo Tschantret, Ian James

Colorado Rapids: Zack Steffen (C); Miguel Navarro, Rob Holding (Noah Cobb 70'), Lucas Herrington, Jackson Travis (Keegan Rosenberry 79'); Hamzat Ojediran, Paxten Aaronson (Alexis Manyoma 79'), Wayne Frederick; Dante Sealy, Rafael Navarro, Darren Yapi (Josh Atencio 61')

Subs Not Used: Nicolas Defreitas-Hansen, Kimani Stewart-Baynes, Mamadou Billo Diop, Ted Ku-DiPietro, Alex Harris

Scoring Summary:

COL - Paxten Aaronson 1 (Darren Yapi 2, Rafael Navarro 2) 12'

SKC - Shapi Suleymanov 1 (Calvin Harris 2, Lasse Berg Johnsen 2) 44'

COL - Wayne Frederick 1 (unassisted) 45+2'

COL - Rafael Navarro 3 (unassisted) 71'

COL - Paxten Aaronson 2 (Rafael Navarro 3) 75'

Misconduct Summary:

SKC - Manu Garcia (yellow card; delaying a restart) 5'

SKC - Jansen Miller (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 38'

COL - Lucas Herrington (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 39'

COL - Rob Holding (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 42'

COL - Miguel Navarro (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 60'

SKC - Jacob Bartlett (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 77' STATSKCCOL Shots818 Shots on Goal39 Expected Goals0.64.4 Corner Kicks64 Possession45.6%54.4% Saves42 Fouls1721

Referee: Fotis Bazakos Assistant Referee: Kyle Atkins Assistant Referee: Corey Parker Fourth Official: Edson Carvajal VAR: Jorge Gonzalez AVAR: TJ Zablocki

-- SportingKC.com --

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Major League Soccer Stories from March 21, 2026


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