KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Jimmy Nielsen paused and exhaled, the dissatisfaction bubbling back up as he spoke about the two points Sporting Kansas City left on the field in Vancouver little more than a week ago.
For many in Kansas City, the defining moment of the massively disappointing draw wasn’t Camilo’s stoppage-time goals. It wasn’t Teal Bunbury’s brilliant brace. It wasn’t the seemingly contagious cramping that shackled many of Sporting’s players in the late going.
It was Nielsen, normally calm and collected, rushing off his line, face flushed red with anger, to lay into his teammates after yet another shot in stoppage time flew past his right post, just barely keeping the score tied at 3-3.
“I was extremely disappointed and extremely frustrated,” Nielsen said. “We gave away three goals so easily and so quickly. It was just that all my frustration came out there.”
[inline_node:332720]That frustration marked the low point of a three-game stretch in which Kansas City gave up a league-leading eight goals, a dubious distinction the club hadn’t experienced since August of 2009 when a 6-0 defeat at the hands of FC Dallas led to the dismissal of Curt Onalfo.
And while the current circumstances are nowhere near as dire, Sporting hope that these three games are an aberration and not an indication of what’s to come in 2011.
Much of that depends on how quickly the team gels and finds common ground in manager Peter Vermes’ system, one that promotes pressure high up the field and requires every player in the game to be committed on both sides of the ball.
Kansas City didn’t find their stride in that system until July last season. And as simple as it would be to place the blame on a beat up back four and three games on the road, that would be taking the easy way out.
“We, as a team and as a group, have to take a lot of pride in keeping the ball out of the back of our net,” Davy Arnaud said. “That’s not just a goalkeeper thing or back four thing. That’s 11 guys on the field.”
And, as Nielsen himself even admitted, Kansas City have done themselves very few favors this season when it comes to game management.
Sporting shut down a punchless Chivas USA for the most part on opening night, but fell asleep on two set pieces with predictable results. They corrected those mistakes but paid the price for a first-half red card a week later against the Fire.
Then a 3-0 second-half advantage in Vancouver appeared unassailable, but Kansas City played into the home team’s hands, continuing to press and stretch themselves when prudent defending and plenty of men behind the ball could have earned the three points.
“We kind of lost ourselves,” defender Michael Harrington said of that late collapse. “We are a team that presses a lot. I think we got ourselves stretched out and weren’t compact enough. We made ourselves vulnerable.”
And, as it usually does at the professional level, that vulnerability caught up to Kansas City at the most inopportune time.
But it’s still early and the sample size is small. As frustrating as Sporting’s defensive susceptibilities have been this season, there’s no reason to believe Vermes’ side can’t turn things around with a little work on the training ground and a few more games together.
If not, Nielsen’s outburst in Vancouver certainly won’t be last time Kansas City hear it from the White Puma.
“He was showing that he cares,” Vermes said. “That’s important on the field. I don’t have any problem with it. That was the first time since he’s been here that he has really let it go.”
The hope is that it will also be the last.