Sporting Ties Portland 3-3
April 7, 2024 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Sporting Kansas City News Release
Sporting Kansas City (2-1-4, 10 points) battled the Portland Timbers (2-3-2, 8 points) to a wild 3-3 draw on Sunday afternoon at sun-drenched Children's Mercy Park.
Willy Agada struck twice and Dany Rosero buried a header to give Sporting a 3-0 lead at halftime, but Portland responded through Evander, Felipe Mora and Eric Miller to split the points in a thrilling Western Conference encounter that was televised nationally on FOX and Apple TV.
Fielding an unchanged side from last weekend's 3-1 road victory over Toronto FC, Sporting dominated the first 45 minutes and wasted little time drawing first blood. Shortly after having a side-footed effort saved by Portland goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau on the breakaway, Agada landed his first haymaker in the 13th minute on a long-range blast that took a wicked deflection before nestling into the left corner.
Losers of three straight games entering the day, Portland almost grabbed a goal back in the 26th minute when Antony hammered home at the back post off a cross from Jonathan Rodriguez, but the goal was rightly disallowed for an offside infraction on Rodriguez.
Sporting doubled their advantage in the 38th minute on a corner kick that resulted from Crepeau's diving save to deny Daniel Salloi at the near post. The ensuing set piece delivery from Memo Rodriguez was planted firmly into the back of the net by a leaping Rosero, who has now accounted for five of Sporting's eight headed goals since the start of 2023. During the entire 2023 regular season, Sporting had three total goals scored by defenders. Seven matches into the 2024 campaign, Kansas City has already equaled that total with Rosero bagging twice and Jake Davis tallying once.
Agada made the score 3-0 on the stroke of intermission. Erik Thommy's searching free kick to the far post was headed back across the face of goal by center back Robert Voloder and smashed low into the corner by Sporting's in-form Nigerian, who now has 12 goals in 11 career regular season home starts at Children's Mercy Park and ranks 10th in club history with four multi-goal games. The German duo of Voloder and Thommy picked up their first assists of the season on the play and sent Portland to the locker room with a formidable three-goal deficit.
In a tale of two halves, Portland responded over the final 45 minutes. Davis did brilliantly to prevent Portland from scoring in the 56th minute, sticking out his boot in mid-air to intercept a teasing Antony cross from reaching Rodriguez on the doorstep. Five minutes later, Agada spurned his chance at a hat trick by dragging a penalty kick wide of the frame after Thommy was clattered inside the box by Portland defender Claudio Bravo.
The Timbers pocketed two goals in as many minutes midway through the second stanza. Evander kickstarted the rally by converting a penalty kick that was awarded for Leibold's foul on Mora after the two rose for an aerial challenge. The score was 3-2 a few short moments later as Mora latched onto Rodriguez's cross and snapped a header that Melia could only scoop away after the ball had already crossed the goal line.
Antony forced a save from Melia in the 75th minute and Rodriguez had a floating header miss by inches not long later. The Timbers would find their equalizer, however, when Miller sent a rebound effort into the roof of the net after Melia had initially saved a headed shot from Cristhian Paredes.
Sporting had two fleeting chances to win the game in the dying embers off a pair of Remi Walter corner kicks, but Alenis Vargas' header lifted over the bar and Leibold's piledriver was blocked through traffic.
With a frustrating result in the books, Sporting will look to return to winning ways on Saturday by hosting star-studded Inter Miami CF in a colossal showdown at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Kickoff is slated for 7:30 p.m. CT and a limited number of tickets are available online. The mouthwatering cross-conference clash will also be shown live on MLS Season Pass via Apple TV.
QUOTES
Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On the second half...
Bad management of the game. Simple. Just bad management. I'm not going to tell you what I told the guys at halftime. But what I told them to do, we did the complete opposite which resulted in the ball being in our end most of the half or at least until they tied the game up except for the period getting to the penalty kick.
On the second half penalties...
Momentum change, but still bad management on our part because we're still at that point up 3-1. It's just bad management.
On his message to the team...
Well, the good thing is we didn't lose. So we made a step in the right direction of tying but it's still not good enough. Not with three goals. No chance. I said last time we were at home, 'You scored two goals. You have got to finish the game out at home.' And now we scored three at home. We scored three away and we closed the game out and we don't do it at home.
On the team not executing the plan for the second half...
I wish I could tell you, but I'll find out for sure and that ain't gonna happen because it's the thing that put us in the position that we're in. We were chasing everything facing our goal. They were playing over the top of us. I knew they were going to do that just because of two things. One is they were going to go direct. The other is they had the wind with them.
On if Alan Pulido's minutes were pre-planned...
No, I'm just going to make my decisions based on the game.
Sporting Kansas City forward Willy Agada
Thoughts on the match...
It just cannot happen again. It just keeps happening. We keep dropping points at home, but it's all part of the game. I mean, we all make mistakes sometimes, but I know we cannot just keep saying that. We're going to fix it. We just really have to fix it. It's on every player, not just the defenders or the striker or the midfielders. I think it's on each and every one of us, especially me. I need to maybe kill it and make it 4-0. Things happen sometimes, so we just need to learn from our mistakes.
On his penalty...
It's just part of the game. I don't want to make excuses. I tried to wait and see how he moved, but he waited for me trying to change my decision at the last second. That was what happened. And then I tried to bring it back because I was just hoping he was going to move, but he just stayed all the way so that was what happened. It is part of the game. I just need to keep going. We cannot keep dropping points at home as we did today.
On the second half...
I feel like sometimes when we beat teams up in the first half, sometimes we get a little bit relaxed. We feel more comfortable instead of keeping it going. So sometimes we just want to take it easy and then those teams, they never stop. They keep coming at us. So it's something we need to really work on. We cannot just be chilling after getting goals. We just need to keep going and keep scoring goals and stay on our feet. But it happened again in this home game. We just have got to keep going as usual. We cannot just stop like this. We need to keep going. It's a long season. We're getting better game after game and we just have to keep going.
On the frustration...
Honestly, it's really frustrating because we cannot keep losing points, especially in front of our fans like this. We have just got to find a solution, every one of us as the players. We cannot just keep dropping points. I don't know what the problem is, but we just need to look for a solution. We're going back to training and we're gonna work this out.
On Johnny Russell's message to the team...
Honestly, things like that - especially the big boys, the big cats - they're really not happy whenever we lose games like that. They always express their frustration. Especially when he's not playing, he's always behind the scene watching us, always. So it's something that we're expecting from him. He doesn't like losing just as much as every one of us here, but we just need to keep going as a team.
On the Timbers comeback...
In the second half, we tried to keep the ball while they keep taking risks. When you take risks, anything can happen. Either you lose the game 7-0 or you start scoring back. So I think that was what happened. And like I said, we just have to keep going.
Sporting Kansas City defender Tim Leibold
On the second half...
We played a great first half. We were 3-0 up and this game usually is over. We had a chance to score the fourth goal. It doesn't matter if we scored or not. We have to keep better distance in between us when we are not having the ball. It's just too easy. I don't know if something happens with us if the opponent scores the goal, then we probably start to think and we're not that confident anymore. And the opponent, they feel it or they felt it today that there's something possible for them over here. It's just disappointing that we're not winning this game.
On Johnny Russell's postgame speech...
We have to talk to each other. We didn't win the Philly game at home because we concede the goal at the end of the game. We lost the LA game at home. We scored twice and we're scoring three goals today. We're not winning the game as well. We have to talk about that because it's many points and I hope we're not going to miss them at the end of the season.
On what to change...
I feel like we have to find a better balance between either killing the opponent or defending as a team. It's probably a couple guys doing this and a couple guys doing that. We're not acting as a team anymore. I feel like everybody wants to, but something is switching because we're not that compact anymore. It's too easy for them to score goals. For sure, they can have a couple chances a game. That's how the game was today as well. But it's just the goals we (give up), like today as well. It's just too easy.
On his concern level...
No, I'm not concerned. We played a great first half. If Willy (Agada) scores the fourth goal, probably the game is over. We don't know. But as I said, we're 3-0 up. It's just disappointing for us. We have to find a solution. We have to talk to each other because something like this -- or against the LA Galaxy, something like that -- does not happen again.
2024 MLS Regular Season | Match 7
Children's Mercy Park | Kansas City, Kansas
Attendance: 17,424
Weather: 66 degrees and sunny
Score 1 2 F
Sporting Kansas City (2-1-4, 10 points) 3 0 3
Portland Timbers (2-3-2, 8 points) 0 3 3
Sporting Kansas City: Tim Melia; Jake Davis, Dany Rosero, Robert Voloder, Tim Leibold; Nemanja Radoja, Remi Walter, Memo Rodriguez (Alenis Vargas 82'); Erik Thommy, Willy Agada (Alan Pulido 71'), Daniel Salloi (C)
Subs Not Used: John Pulskamp, Zorhan Bassong, Robert Castellanos, Andreu Fontas, Kayden Pierre, Felipe Hernandez, Marinos Tzionis
Portland Timbers: Maxime Crepeau; Juan Mosquera (Claudio Bravo 46'), Miguel Araujo, Kamal Miller, Eric Miller; Cristhian Paredes (Eryk Williamson 90+6'), David Ayala (Diego Chara 54'); Santiago Moreno (Felipe Mora 46'), Evander (C), Antony (Dairon Asprilla 89'); Jonathan Rodriguez
Subs Not Used: James Pantemis, Dario Zuparic, Nathan Fogaca
Scoring Summary:
SKC -- Willy Agada 2 (unassisted) 13'
SKC -- Dany Rosero 2 (Memo Rodriguez 2) 38'
SKC -- Willy Agada 3 (Robert Voloder 1, Erik Thommy 1) 45+3'
POR -- Evander 3 (penalty kick) 64'
POR -- Felipe Mora 2 (Jonathan Rodriguez 1, Antony 2) 66'
POR -- Eric Miller 1 (unassisted) 81'
Misconduct Summary:
SKC -- Dany Rosero (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 25'
POR -- Kamal Miller (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 34'
SKC -- Memo Rodriguez (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 48'
POR -- Eric Miller (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 82'
SKC -- Jake Davis (yellow card; unsporting behavior) 90+8'
Stat SKC POR
Shots 15 9
Shots on Goal 6 8
Saves 5 3
Fouls 16 20
Offsides 0 2
Corner Kicks 7 1
Referee: Armando Villarreal
Assistant Referee: Cameron Blanchard
Assistant Referee: Jeremy Hanson
Fourth Official: Matthew Corrigan
VAR: Sorin Stoica
AVAR: Jonathan Johnson
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