Sporting KC vs San Jose Postscript - This Season Has Started Out Better Than the Last

The Sporting Sauce Diaries of 2024 - Entry 12

If I go to a match solo, I try to find a spot high above the pitch, from either the bridge or the South Stands. From this vantage point, I can observe the teams' shapes and tactical makeups. I can watch plays develop. There are so many fascinating styles played in this Major League - The Crew's possession, the Atlanta counter-attack fast-break, the Dynamo's wingbacks crashing the box from both sides, the Taurine press in Harrison and St. Louis, the Sugar Free variant of which is developing in DC, Miami's thing where they let you take as many shots on goals as you want, letting Drake Callendar make inhuman saves on half of them and letting the Pink Aura force you into scuffing the rest, then limping into the box and burying the two or three chances they take off of you... There are many great opportunities that this league presents you, but I happened to take this vantage point against the Earthquakes.

Luchi Gonzalez's San Jose team looks lost in the woods, a sincere last-place threat, holding zero points at the beginning of the year and little tactical identity. They should have at least a competent MLS roster, pocked with some of the league's best at their positions (Cristian Espinoza, Daniel), some proven MLS talents (Jeremy Ebobisse, Carlos Grueizo), and a few promising young prospects (Preston Judd, Niko Tsakiris). I was a little disappointed that the apparent trainwreck they'd rode into Frisco was amended to a more reasonable 4-4-2 formation, one which proved more competent than I wanted for the sake of both my reasonable desire to see Sporting take 3 points and my perverse desire to see tactical foundery -- Though it made for an entertaining game.

I kept reflecting on my early-season experiences in 2023 throughout this match, particularly after San Jose scored first off of a set-piece. Early in last season, Sporting conceding a goal would cause the edges of my vision to go black and my brain to start spot-composing emo poetry:

April 9th, 2023:

Our ruin is Rubio's.

Borne of mortal scorn and

mutual betrayal. It stings -

Youthful, exuberant Yapi, or

that Manon Lescaut in Maroon,

Cabral; I could sit in.

But Diego, whose name I sang

in triplet triplet,

quarter quarter quarter

for years from the same stand

supporting my melancholy this brisk

night in March. It lingers-

My pain all-encompassed

My teeth gnashing futilely

My downfall

Rapid

This year, I'm more confident in this team's cohesive capacity to get one back if they take a hit early on. I never had this sense with last year's team. When last year's team won, they won sprinting from the first whistle. Over the full season, they were resilient, but in-game, I didn't have that sense. Even over the last stretch of 2023, the matches felt like either 4-1 blowout wins or 1-0 slog losses. It must have been the weight of that full-season turnaround that instilled this belief in me at the outset of this season. I believed that an equalizer would come, and it was delivered by Dany Rosero, diving into a header off of a corner.

Dany was one of the two under-acknowledged signings who drove the turnaround in the latter half of 2023 (the other I'll get to in a moment). Dany's been nothing but solid in central defense, winning aerial duels, making up the space that Andreu Fontas (or Robi Voloder in this case) can't, and actually providing an aerial threat off of corners that I can't remember seeing in an SKC uniform since Aurelien Collin. The other under-acknowledged signing who turned last season around was Nemanja Radoja, whose game I tried to specifically take in from that upper-level vantage point. 

He is the face of total control in our midfield, a stabilizing presence at the number 6 position basically necessary for success in this Major League. It was my experience watching Steven Moreira and Obinna Nwobodo control the shape of that match from the back rows of Lower.com Field last summer that got me interested in watching Radoja from the same vantage point. A good central defensive midfielder is always present - They slow the opponent's attack and they get the counter started just that bit quicker. Radoja provides that for us. He and Rosero don't provide the flash that fills the highlight reel, but they create the circumstances for the flash to occur. They are the rhythm section of this team, a Novoselic and Grohl (perhaps Radoja's closer to Smear with his prowess on corners providing an extra wrinkle) for this ensemble.

The defensive stability of Radoja and Rosero provides leeway for Jake Davis to throw himself fully into every tackle he possibly can. He leans into each of them, succeeds more often than not, and even if he fails, he's quite good at recovering in time anyway. Defense in this sport is such a subtle art, one that’s been difficult for my American brain, built first on the countable shot blocks, PBUs, and put-outs, to appreciate. Jake’s tackling prowess and get-go feels comfortable and exciting to that part of my mind, even if I’m aware it might not be sustainable when Joseph Paintsil and Jordi Alba come rambling up that sideline. I’m always aware, seeing an opposing winger making his way up his side of the pitch, that Jake will take a chance on him, which keeps the eyes drawn. He even had an attacking piece in what was the culminatory piece of the match, one of the best team goals I've ever seen, a pleasure to see develop from afar.

It was so clean - Thommy sent a ground pass forward to Salloi, who dribbled forward, pivoted, and waited, twice baiting the Earthquakes defense, first into attempting a tackle before he passed it outside to Johnny Russell, then again as he ran centrally to take pressure off of Russell. Russell found Davis inside, who tapped his pass back to him headed towards the touchline. Russel then threaded a little scoop into the middle of the box for a Pulido tap-in. Salloi doesn' get an assist for it, but his patience in releasing Russell on the side, affecting the shape of the Quakes' defense, and the trust in Russell's vision keeping him from making a play on the cross to Pulido should be praised.

The second half brought unwelcome nerviness. There was hardly an attack to speak on from Sporting down the stretch, which bodes poorly for the team going forward. San Jose couldn’t capitalize on the few chances they had – Rosero had a clutch last-second clearance to save a chance, a goal was called back for a handball by the VAR, a late-stoppage time chance from Tsakiris hit the post – but Sporting struggled to make many of their own. The Earthquakes certainly played with a defensive tilt down the stretch, bunkering with the intent of an equalizer off of a counter or a set-piece, but our inability to close the door on San Jose gives me some pause and keeps me from reeling off into full-blown delirious optimism about this season. 

This second half prompted a central question about this season: A team with a veteran-laden starting unit like this one should be able to consistently put this team in winning positions. Will the team be able to finish from those winning positions? The answer lies in the closing ability of young talent from off of the bench, like Willy Agada, Steven Afrifa, and Alenis Vargas, who I felt played well in the minutes they had out there, and it lies in whether Peter Vermes feels he can trust them to do so consistently. If this doesn’t happen, then we’re likely to see tired legs give up goals and over-extended players succumb to injuries.

Regardless, I can acknowledge that I feel better after four weeks of the 2024 season than I did after four weeks of the 2023 season. The stadium is again full of life, the team is again showing panache and cohesion, and I am again cautiously optimistic.