KANSAS CITY, Kan. – It won't be remembered without controversy, but Sporting Kansas City's first league win over Seattle since 2009 still felt good.
“Yeah, it means extra,” said midfielder Benny Feilhaber, whose 84th-minute penalty kick – after a hotly-contested call against Seattle keeper Stefan Frei – gave Sporting a 1-0 victory on Saturday night and snapped a nine-match winless streak in MLS play against the Sounders. “What they've done to us in the past few years – I think we've won once against them before today – so it's great to kind of reverse the fortune there for us.
“We had that in our heads. We definitely didn't want to give up anything late. Obviously, that's been a problem when we've played against them, and it was nice to get one late for ourselves.”
Seattle coach Sigi Schmid blasted the call in his postmatch news conference, and an earlier offside call – made by an assistant referee trailing the play -- that denied Lamar Neagle a goal for the injury-depleted Sounders.
“That's never a penalty. I'm sorry,” Schmid said. “Our goalkeeper comes out and punches the ball. It's never a penalty.”
Sporting manager Peter Vermes, in his later news conference, said he hadn't seen the replay of the collision that led to the penalty kick between Frei and Sporting forward Dom Dwyer as both went after a ball near the goal. Frei punched the ball away and then collided with Dwyer, who was being pulled by defender Zach Scott as he went for a header.
“All I know is that I watched Benny shoot it and score and it was a good PK,” said Vermes, who also noted that there had been prior occasions when controversial calls went against his club. “I will tell you one thing I did see live is the courage of Dom to go after that ball. “That's what resulted in the play for sure.”
Despite Seattle's protests, the result stands as Sporting's third consecutive clean sheet and seventh straight outing without a loss, despite near-constant lineup turmoil due to injury and international duty, and it lifted them within two points of the Western Conference lead.
“The way that we approach things, we really do take it one game at a time,” center back and captain Matt Besler said during Sporting's news conference. “We really look at every point as just as important as the other points. At the same time it’s nice to beat these guys, because, like Peter mentioned, in the past there have been some calls that haven’t gone our way, some plays haven’t gone our way, we haven’t played well, so it’s nice to win this game. The biggest thing for us is that it is a conference rival game.”
Sporting have played all but two healthy players on their roster this season, and started all but one outfield player. On Saturday night, with Dwyer coming back from a two-match injury absence and Krisztian Nemeth on international duty with Hungary, they were without a true center forward until Dwyer subbed on just before the hour mark.
“Early on, we struggled to get wins against the conference teams,” said winger Graham Zusi, who started in the middle of the front line on Saturday. “But of late, we've been finding ways to win and each guy has made a solid impact. The understanding of roles and responsibilities on the field, the understanding of the style we want to play, the execution of that, is what's leading to all of these wins.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
