A Sporting Day That Raises the Temperature
It was hardly seemed an ideal day for my first Children’s Mercy Park experience of 2019 on Saturday. My schedule had prevented a visit, and in keeping with this generally miserable winter into spring, this day I had been very much looking forward to dawned rainy and cold with even a little snow mixed in. It was a day that you might more expect if I was over in England to watch Watford play Cardiff.
Sporting has become not only a consistently successful franchise, but also an extremely reliable entertainment product on the Kansas City landscape. Their move into their now not so brand-new stadium pretty much coincided with my growth as a soccer fan. Whether I am working a game or just going as a fan, I always look forward to the experience greatly.
Saturday was going to be a combination as Sporting got set to play their fourth MLS match of the season hosting Montreal. Except for the weather, which improved to bearable as the match moved along, all the things that make a Sporting day experience were in place. An early arriving crowd (even more amazing given the conditions), particularly in the Cauldron behind the north goal, filled with enthusiasm, ready for the fireworks before the game, and what will be provided once the whistle blows. On this day, with the temperatures struggling to crack forty, soccer scarves that are often affectations, were very utilitarian.
One thing you always notice as you move among the twenty thousand or so who show up for every home game is how much more fit, generally, that the people are than you would see, say, right across the street at the Legends mall. You can have your own theory as to why that is, but it is patently obvious.
The crowd is a rather unique mix of families and rowdy millennials depending on the seating section. The vibe is pretty family friendly, even when the Cauldron chants become a tad profane. If you are not sitting quite near the intense fan section, you really have to work to hear exactly what they are saying anyway. Not they aren’t extremely loud.
The anthem is sung, the smoke rises after the fireworks, and the “I Believe That We Will Win” chant rocks the place as the opening whistle approaches. The face and heartbeat of the franchise, manager Peter Vermes, stalks the sideline, with the simmering intensity that is always palpable. I am pretty sure it is no delight to play for Vermes if you don’t share his searing passion for excellence, but Sporting Kansas City and their fans couldn’t have a better person for the task of maintaining the standard of excellence that is a decade long and counting.
That excellence had created the incredibly busy start to the season in a year in which Sporting will play in three competitions. Still alive the Concacaf Champions League, the wins creating extra games and an earlier start to the season. Sporting opened up playing five games in the first two weeks of their campaign.
But they had finally had some time off entering Saturday’s game, and while the unprecedented success in the Champions League was to be trumpeted, Sporting entered the game just 1-1-1 in MLS play, so there was a little bit of early season heat to get a home win against Montreal, which had won two of their first three and bagged six goals doing it.
The intensity that Peter Vermes instills in his teams used to be seen in a relentless high press strategy, but has morphed in the last few years into more of a possession based attack. Still relentless in its own way, it is seen now in how Sporting fights immediately to get the ball back when they do lose it. Vermes is a major part of the entertainment value on the sidelines. He is as active over there as a player on the pitch.
Perhaps the most thankless job in all of sports is being the fourth official in a soccer game. Positioned right next to the coaches, he has to get an earful from the likes of Vermes and others for calls that are seldom theirs. I imagine many of these folks hear Vermes’s bellowing New Jersey tinged voice in their sleep.
The fans were at least for a moment extremely glad that they had been early arrivals when merely a minute and fifty seconds in Gerso Fernades tapped home a goal for what appeared to be an early cause for celebration. But the aforementioned fourth official was no doubt getting more than he wanted from Montreal coach Remi Garde in the time it took for video replay to confirm the obvious, that Gerso was well offside.
Sporting was completely undeterred. They completely dominated the play until Johnny Russell jumped on Krisztian Nemeth blocked shot and left footed a beautiful curler past helpless Montreal keeper Evan Bush in the tenth minute for a lead that counted. Sporting continued to maraud the Montreal end, completely dominating play, but despite four or five golden chances, they could not extend the lead….well, for a while.
Just as it appeared that the Impact would somehow escape the first half down just a goal , Sporting struck twice on their eleventh and twelfth shots of the day. First Nemeth, as Fernades passed up on almost certain goal of his own to set up a tap in , and then Felipe Gutierrez on a beautiful volley of another dazzling Fernades feed. 3-0 at the break, and as remarkable as it seems, it really should have been more. The chilly fans had been warmed by a half more dominant than you almost ever see in the sport, making the second half a mere formality.
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t more fun to be had. Russell scored early in the second half to make sure Montreal didn’t even dream of having a shot. Nemeth poured more salt in the wound with his second, and Vermes got the rarest of chances, resting mainstay players using all of his substitutions before the 70th minute. But the carnage continued. The fans who hung in there and partied, got to celebrate 16-year old Gianluca Busion get his first goal, and Nemeth complete his hat trick. Even losing the clean sheet in the 89th minute was merely a footnote.
I’m sure there were fans that wondered whether or not they should go out on this frigid Saturday, what with many nights with warm sunshine and cold beer ahead. I’m also sure they were extremely glad that they bundled up and wrapped their scarves around them. After all you don’t see 7 go in. As in never before in Sporting’s MLS history.
I know there will summer nights and a cold one at Children’s Mercy Park for me to come in 2019. But seeing a team put out a virtuoso act like that one is pretty hot stuff, too.