Home and Away - A Sporting KC Podcast Drew VanderPloeg and Cody Welton

It’s been two weeks since we’ve last recorded the pod and not much has changed!  Sporting KC have lost 3 more games since that time taking the total to 7 in a row, and are now legitimate Wooden Spoon contenders given their measly 2 wins on the season from 16 games.  You heard that right, after Saturday’s game against Seattle, the season will be half over, and the best case scenario is Sporting will have 3 total wins.  And given their performances to date there isn’t much optimism that it will actually increase to that number, either from the fans or the oddsmakers.

Given the state of the club and the fact that Cody and I have gotten a bit worn out talking about the same old problems every week, I posted to both social media and the H&A Discord asking for questions from you, the listeners(this is your reminder to join the H&A Discord server if you want to interact both with us and listeners of the pod, link is in the show notes).  We will spend much of this week’s pod trying to answer those questions as best we can, and interweaving our thoughts on the current state of the team and how they’ve reached this level of futility while we do.

Finally, the USWNT finally gets a couple matches with Emma Hayes on the sideline and while it’s hard to take a ton from two friendlies, early returns were pretty good.  Venezia makes it back up to Serie A but not without potentially damaging our hopes for seeing Gianluca Busio in Children’s Mercy Park next week with the U23’s, and we do a quick preview of this weekend’s upcoming match vs. Seattle.

Music by The Spin Wires

Sporting Kansas City went down to Austin this weekend and lost their 4th straight game and pushed their winless streak in league play to 7, but at least the effort was good.  Peter Vermes made promises to sacrifice quality for effort where necessary but the only lineup changes were swapping backup defenders for other backup defenders.

While we can perhaps agree that in general the players were trying harder than the last match, they still have multiple weaknesses that cause them to ship goals in a very frustrating manner, something that seems counterintuitive given the ideology of the coach and the consideration that effort and mentality were significant problems.

Thankfully, we did get a bit of a palate cleanser last night in KC with Sporting putting in a pretty comprehensive beat down of FC Tulsa in the US Open Cup round of 16.  There were significant performances from players we do not regularly see, and Vermes did not hesitate to ensure that regular starters came in and pulled a shift at the end of the game when he certainly could have rested them with a view to the trip to Portland on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the soccer universe, MLSPA salaries are official and man did they become a topic of discussion, NWSL loves stoppage time, SKC gets linked to a Venezuelan midfielder you’ve never heard of, and both the Men’s and Women’s national teams post rosters for their last friendlies prior to a major tournament.

Sporting Kansas City went down to Austin this weekend and lost their 4th straight game and pushed their winless streak in league play to 7, but at least the effort was good.  Peter Vermes made promises to sacrifice quality for effort where necessary but the only lineup changes were swapping backup defenders for other backup defenders.

While we can perhaps agree that in general the players were trying harder than the last match, they still have multiple weaknesses that cause them to ship goals in a very frustrating manner, something that seems counterintuitive given the ideology of the coach and the consideration that effort and mentality were significant problems.

Thankfully, we did get a bit of a palate cleanser last night in KC with Sporting putting in a pretty comprehensive beat down of FC Tulsa in the US Open Cup round of 16.  There were significant performances from players we do not regularly see, and Vermes did not hesitate to ensure that regular starters came in and pulled a shift at the end of the game when he certainly could have rested them with a view to the trip to Portland on Saturday.

Elsewhere in the soccer universe, MLSPA salaries are official and man did they become a topic of discussion, NWSL loves stoppage time, SKC gets linked to a Venezuelan midfielder you’ve never heard of, and both the Men’s and Women’s national teams post rosters for their last friendlies prior to a major tournament.

Things seemed to finally have reached a breaking point after Sporting KC lost again at home to Houston making it zero league wins since March, 2 total wins out of 12 games, and a point total under 12 from 12 games for the 3rd season in a row.  Peter Vermes did not hold back in his post game press conference calling the goals they conceded “atrocious” and “amateur at best”, while questioning the effort and mentality of some of the players.  He then doubled down in a fairly frank radio interview with Soren Petro and provided additional detail surrounding what he feels to be unacceptable playing behavior by several members of the squad.

Daniel Salloi seemed to echo his feelings after the match with similarly stern commentary regarding players not having the appropriate mentality on the field.

On the opposite side of the table, the Kansas City Current continued their unbeaten start through a whirlwind 8 days that saw cancelled flights, charter planes grounded for turbulence, and an increased defensive solidity that had Vlatko Andonovski effusive about how much he is enjoying coaching this team and still himself not knowing what their ceiling truly is.

In other news this week, Jake Davis got a new contract, MLS finally got a bit more transparent with teams’ roster makeup and designations, and Jesse Marsch became the new Canadian Men’s National Team.

Music by The Spin Wires

The Sporting KC Comms department made sure to let us know how well SKC had performed on the road this before the game up in Minnesota, conveniently leaving out the fact they had only played 3 road games all season.  That backfired a bit as the boys in blue took a 2-1 defeat at Allianz Field with yet another attempt to make the 4-2-3-1 happen. 

It doesn't seem like it is going anywhere anytime soon so we take a deeper dive into the setup, how it is traditionally used, how SKC seem to be trying to use it to their advantage, the issues they are having implementing it effectively, and what the long game might be.

We were dealt another full iteration of the Willy Agada experience, complete with dangerous runs and the highest xG performance on the team, which was also combined with a poor shot on said high xG chance, a wonderful off-side goal and naive turnovers on the ball.

Vermes’ post game comments are drawing the ire of some supporters again, both for his old man yells at cloud moment holding up a tablet screenshot of goal that looks offside without taking into account parallax effect, but was actually likely onside when you do, but additionally for taking a fairly measured approach to discussing the team’s results to date.  This has also led to some areas of the internet to ask whether Vermes is too comfortable given his contract situation and whether he has the requisite drive for results the fans expect.  

Finally, we have to talk about the Current some more, as they are the toast of NWSL early in the season, and we will also try to ascertain whether SKC’s fates are likely to change this weekend in Salt Lake.

Music by The Spin Wires.

It felt like Groundhog Day in Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night as Sporting Kansas City scored first, and held a lead into stoppage time only to give up a late equalizer on a somewhat unfortunate, yet somewhat self inflicted series of events,  and this increased their tally of dropped points from winning positions to 14 on the season.

In fairness, Sporting KC was pretty lucky to have that lead, after a pretty wild own goal equalizer and then a bit of brilliance from Andreu Fontas and Erik Thommy to go ahead in a match they were otherwise struggling to create a meaningful imprint on.

It was a very physical match, which certainly dominated the discourse both locally and nationally after the game, with SKC fans bemoaning the referee for not making foul calls and most of the national media wondering how SKC had become this soft.  we’ve been saying this for years

From a good news perspective, at least the coach isn’t worried about it.

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72 thousand plus midwestern soccer fans descended on Arrowhead Stadium Saturday to see Sporting KC take on Leo Messi and Inter Miami and were treated to several golazos on both sides of the ball and an unfortunate 3-2 loss for the good guys in blue.  The environment was honestly pretty cool, and it did give a glimpse of what professional soccer could look like in this region, but it also highlighted the length of the road to get there and how much of it we have left to traverse.

Sporting once again scored first in the match but were also once again unable to maintain that lead and they have now have one win from 5 home matches this season, a troubling statistic for an MLS team and leaving them with an uphill battle after this weekend with 4 of their next 5 games coming on the road.

We will cover some rule changes and the Open Cup draw in potpourri, as well as do a preview of this weekend’s derby against the pink scum to the east.

Music by The Spin Wires