Sporting KC vs Portland Postscript - We've Become Acquainted With The Guillotine
The Sporting Sauce Diaries 2024 - Entry 2
We are fortunate to have missed the era of the guillotine.
I suppose that there's no method of execution that wasn't laden with a terrible sense of dread immediately before taking place, but the guillotine feels uniquely awful because of the visual imminence it presents to its victim. Laying down, neck a few feet beneath the blade, victim able to see the glint of the sun off of its edge, able to watch as it makes its final descent, able to understand in that short, but still processable span of time, that their end was arriving.
I know painfully little about the French revolution for someone who holds a degree in that language. I don't know if they forced people to watch it come down or not. I don’t know which part would be the worst: There’s the first part, in which one can observe the blade rest stationary, laden with potential energy, the second part, the shortest, in which the blade descends, and the third, the longest, in which the victim dies. Certainly, the physical effect of the blade is the worst part, but the psychological impact of seeing it primed to fall is a terror of its own.
I now see the blade.
It all changed so quickly on Sunday afternoon. There was a penalty missed by Sporting, a penalty given to Portland, a penalty scored by Portland, and a second goal scored by Portland in a matter of minutes. I found myself dazed, shaky. A laugher had turned into a funeral before any of us had the time to recognize it as either.
The worst part of this collapse was having to sit in it for the next fifteen minutes before the blade dropped. I have never been more certain that this team would give up a goal than I was during this period. When it finally came, it came from Eric Miller of all people, notching his first MLS goal in the middle of his eleventh season for his sixth team. He got his first start running the right wing in Montreal with Justin Mapp! He got his first assist in TCF Bank Stadium! Now he’s had his first goal to complete a terrible collapse that’s becoming commonplace for Sporting KC in 2024. A perfectly bizarre catharsis to complete a perfectly bizarre match.
I will not be able to ignore the blade from here out. Dropping a 1-0 lead to Philadelphia early in the year against the backdrop of a referee work stoppage is an unfortunate event. Dropping a two goal lead in the second half to the Galaxy was worrisome, but still potentially abberative. A third defensive collapse in four home matches, a second match in a row in which this team has given up three unanswered goals is a pattern. Dropping points in the second half is not only something of which this team is capable, but it's something that we have reason to more or less expect out of them. There will be no lead in 2024 that isn't, to some extent, tinged with the knowledge of the blade's capacity to drop, of this team’s capacity to drop otherwise insurmountable leads.
If nothing else, this will render the match-going and match-watching experience fascinating. There will be no dull moment with this team. This is my first year with season tickets, so I will be present for every one of those non-dull moments. The certainty that I’ll be face-to-face with each match has brought a sort of perverse excitement to the knowledge that I'll never feel secure this year. I may see blowout wins at Children’s Mercy Park this season, but I won't believe that they're real until the final whistle blows and we’re doing the song. I will not allow myself to look away, as I might miss another astounding collapse. This will help build my attention span. This will make me more emotionally resilient. This will give me more time to interact in a healthy, controlled space with disappointment and dread. This will help me build resilience in my bladder and help me to sit with hunger. I will grow as a person over the next months, I will learn to love that which may decide to travel perilously downwards at any moment.
We’ve got the guillotine; I cannot run.