KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Sporting Kansas City's new formation was one finish away from being an instant success.
Manager Peter Vermes' shift away from a 4-3-3 setup to a 4-5-1 and then a 4-4-2 produced 18 shots in Sunday night's season opener, despite Sporting having to play the last 20 minutes shorthanded after defender Matt Besler was sent off with his second yellow card.
Only one went in, though – Ike Opara's 50th-minute header – and Sporting had to settle for a 1-1 draw against the New York Red Bulls.
Forward Dom Dwyer felt the missed opportunities keenly, after missing two potential match-winners from close range in the second half. Afterward, he shouldered the responsibility for the draw.
“I didn't do my job tonight,” Dwyer told reporters. “We missed out on two points. It's frustrating, but I'll learn from it and improve. This one's on me tonight. We're a good side, and we should have won the game.”
To his credit, Dwyer kept his sense of humor, taking to Twitter after the game to apologize to fans and mention the goal-scoring form of his wife, USWNT striker Sydney Leroux:
Dwyer appeared to lose his footing on the first missed chance, when he slid and scuffed Roger Espinoza's cross in the 59th minute, and players from both sides struggled with the same issue throughout the match.
“I think the pitch is fine,” Vermes said in his postmatch news conference. “I think it is more the players. I mean they had them as well. They had guys falling. It was wrong shoes.”
Still, Dwyer said, missed chances are better than none at all.
“The amount of chances I got tonight really shows what kind of team we have,” he said. “It's like I always said: I'm going to get chances in this team – a lot more than last year, I can see. So once I find my feet a little bit and get back into it, I'll put those ones away. It was a little bit frustrating, but I'm looking at it as a positive. I'll put them away next time.”
Vermes, too, was pleased with the way his players continued to press for a win despite going down a man.
“You´re playing your first game of the season,” he said. “Very rarely is everybody 90 minutes fit, let alone able to play 10 men for 90-plus minutes. It howed a lot of determination and courage from the guys to be able to fight the way they did. What they did really well was they were actually smart. They were really disciplined defensively but they picked and chose some really good moments.
“We could have stolen the game at the end a couple of times,” Vermes went on. “There were great opportunities. Dom had two of them. But in the end, I think probably – to be honest with you, I think a tie is probably a fair result.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
