WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: SPORTING KANSAS CITY

Welcome back to What You Need To Know, a preview for Austin FC fans to check in on their next opponent. 

Austin FC is back in Q2 for a rare two-home match week. As I hope everyone is aware they defeated the Houston Dynamo 1-0 on Wednesday thanks to a late Sebastian Driussi winner and the usual heroics in goal by Brad Stuver.

We’ve grown accustomed to Stuver’s brilliance in an Austin FC kit. Originally he was expected to back up Andrew Tarbell, but quickly cemented himself as the starter and as a leader in the squad. He currently leads the league in saves, is tied for the lead in Clean Sheets, leads in PSxG (FBref), and is second in Save%. Some, including this author, would point out that Austin FC would be nowhere with a lesser keeper and probably have a different coach by now. 

Fan voting for the MLS All-Star game starts on May 31 and runs through June 14, everyone Austin FC fan needs to unite in voting for him every day.

History vs. Austin FC:

All-time Austin is 4-1-2 (W-D-L) against Sporting KC and is 3-0 at home including a 2-1 win last season. 

Recent Matches:

Sporting KC hasn’t won since March 30 at Toronto, they’ve lost their last three matches including losing 2-1 at home to the Houston Dynamo last Saturday.

Players to Watch:

Alan Pulido

The Mexican striker has led Sporting KC’s attack since he arrived in 2020 and that hasn’t changed this season. The change Peter Vermes has made is letting Pulido line up deeper as a 10 and use William Agada to lead the forward line. This allows him to link play and run into the box without being marked directly by Centerback, meaning Austin’s midfielders will have to find and mark him whenever Sporting KC gets forward

Daniel Salloi

The Hungarian winger provides the width to the Kansas City attack and has had a goal contribution in three of the last four games.

Andreu Fontas

Fontas has been a consistent starter on the back line for Sporting KC and leads their defense, unfortunately for Sporting KC fans that defense hasn’t been very stout. They’ve allowed 14 goals in their last six matches and for an Austin FC side that struggles scoring this defense is a welcome visitor. 

Jose “Memo“ Rodriguez

The Ex-Austin FC player has been playing well as of late for his new club this new season. Rodriguez leads SKC in assists with 3 and has taken on a CM role under Peter Vermes. He’s played 8 games this season in which he started 6, accumulating just over 500 minutes. For Austin FC, Rodriguez played a total of 9 matches, starting just 2 of them and only playing 236 minutes. Will he punish his old club for not picking his option up?

Keys to the Match:

Experienced vs. Old

Alan Pulido, Johnny Russell, and Andre Fontas are all 34 years old and 7 of their top 9 players in minutes are 29 and over.  They’ve been able to keep their core intact, but outside of Agada, they haven’t added any younger legs to help buoy that aging core. They barely made it into the playoffs last year and this year looks like they’re likely to miss out completely. 

Rotation

The Austin FC High-Performance staff has stated before that it takes roughly 72 hours after a match for players to be back to 100%. With the match on Wednesday pushing that limit, we saw a few substitutions on Saturday that were made with an eye on this match. Notably, Gyasi Zardes in the 66’ along with the triple sub in the 77’ (Leo Vaisanen, Hector Jimenez, and Owen Wolff) were brought in either earlier than normal or brought on at all as Austin FC has been subbing out fullbacks less frequently. The most interesting substitution was CJ Fodrey on for Jaider Obrian in the 57’ which saw an outburst from the Colombian. With rest in mind for some of these subs, how will Wolff balance rest vs. performance, especially for Sebastian Driussi. 

Effort is a skill

Sporting coach Peter Vermes has been disappointed in his team’s effort the past few games, and in this week’s press conference had this exchange:

Soren Petro: “Do you anticipate a change in the line-up?”

Peter Vermes: “It’s a good possibility. A good possibility”

Soren Petro: “Where?”

Peter Vermes: “Wherever I see weakness. I am not going with it. I will sacrifice quality for effort”

In professional sports effort is a skill, players who run and press the entire time on the field are valuable and when the talent is equal or close to it, the talent who also puts in the most effort wins. For a team lacking quality, Sporting can’t also lack effort. 

See you at Q2!

WRITTEN BY: SCOTT SPECHT