South Couch Report : Kansas City v Toronto

Sporting KC as the Kansas City Spurs

Sporting KC as the Kansas City Spurs

Stupid Sporting KC Wiz. Their stupid home graph paper kits and their stupid team with Dom Dwyer. So much stupid here.

Toronto is in Children Mercy Park, which is a terrible name that is supposedly known as “The Blue Hell”. Any park for a kid’s mercy it probably a shade of hell.

The good news : Altidore isn’t starting but he’s available. Giovinco hasn’t been chosen for Italy exhibitions. Cheyrou is starting.

The bad news : Moor is out with whooping cough (speculated). Toledo is reffing. That could go either way.

Unbeaten in two matches, and this should be the most difficult test of the road trip.

Onto the Match:

5’ – Johnson floats a pretty cross into the box but it’s intercepted by a defender who accurately slides in an one touches it back to the keeper.

10’ – Williams does an excellent job a an obstacle, preventing someone to attacking a ball, and allowing Irwin to gather the ball.

15’ – Giovinco smashes a free kick, into the wall. Duncan probably called it, including which player it hit in the face.

25’ – wow, how that wasn’t a booking on Johnson for that tackle, I’ll have no idea. Happy to see that Toledo is still inconsistent.

36’ – Giovinco gets the ball 10 yards in front of the penalty area, and gets swarmed by 6 pajama blue graph paper shirts.

40’ – Giovinco gets a nice ball down the wing from Cheyrou, cuts into the top of the box, lays it off to a marauding Johnson and launches it at the keeper.

42’ – Perquis is down after colliding with Dwyer, knee on knee. Sadly Dwyer is fine.

45’ – Giovinco is such a bully. Picking on such a big defender and drawing a foul in the corner.

Half Time Mood : Cautiously optimistic. Mostly Kansas City control, but few meaningful opportunities for either side.

55’ – Brad Davis with some grossly unsportsmanlike play. Cheyrou get a stomping and goes down. Everyone looks to kick it out and he decides to play on. Bradley gets in his face and repeats to him “This is Michael Bradley. Brad? This is Michael Bradley.” Man knows his communication. Also, Brad Davis is now reason #28 why I dislike this franchise.

59’ – YELLOW – Cheyrou gets booked for a weird body scissors tackle thingie on Quintilla.

62’ – Giovinco sends a through ball to Endoh, fires away and Melia makes a great save to parry it onto the post. Could not have been intentional, but that’s how it went. Just when I was thinking that Endoh should come off for Altidore… I’m sorry Captain for doubting you.

65’ – Perquis with another positive defensive manouvre, getting in front of Dwyer to head the ball back to Irwin. He’s having a very good game.

66’ – Giovinco, trying to save us all, dances around one defender, fights off another challenge, nearly loses the ball in the box, and still gets a half-shot off that ends up wide.

70’ – GOAL Brad Davis takes out Morrow at the side of the penalty area, an actual foul that isn’t called, the Davis dances into the the centre of the penalty area and fires wide of Irwin and into the far post.
WIZ 1, ROBINS 0

FUN STAT : That’s two games in a row where an illegal play resulted in a goal for the opposition.

74’ – Bradley sends a ball up the pitch that finds Giovinco and gets a shot off at a rough angle that Melia stops easily.

78’ – SUB : Jozy Altidore comes in for Endoh

78’ – SUB – Mo Babouli comes in for Cheyrou

79’ – Switch to a 4-4-2 and nearly paid dividends, as Babouli takes the ball, feints out a defender, pops a ball to Altidore who sets it back to Giovinco who fires just wide.

84’ – Delgado has been tangled up in a tackle and Toledo has given the offender Espinola a red card.

86’ – SUB – Chapman comes in for Williams

89’ – Myers gives Morrow a headache, then crosses to Dwyer who heads it well wide of the goal.

4 minutes of extra time

90+3’ – Giovinco earns a corner, launches it but it was knocked out. Babouli collects the clearance and fires it back in and just misses the sliding foot of Giovinco.

90+4’ – Handball results in a free kick 25 yards from goal. Giovinco fires it into the wall.

Full Time : Kansas City 1, Toronto 0

Man of the Match : Damien Perquis made a done of committed actions that have left him goat worthy, but he was right place right time quite often at the back.

Goat of the Game : Brad Davis is the fresh poo from a newborn that just ate a jar of peas

Ref Rating : 3 out of 5. Did well, but blew the call that mattered.

I Am Not The Gaffer, But… : I might have made the changes earlier, not as a reaction to the goal, but because it wasn’t working.

In Case You PVR’d It : Second half. You could skip up until the 68th minute and then let it roll.

Well, Giovinco was clearly the crutch tonight, and try as he might, he could not prop up the Robins on this evening.  Faulting anyone for constantly using the ‘give the ball to Will’ technique would be shortsighted, because it’s easy and reliable.  Why wouldn’t anyone do that?  I certainly would, and I am the worst at Football Manager 2015.  That being said, if it isn’t working, and the opposition has your number, change it in proactivity, and not reactivity.  Accepting that this is all a bit “hindsight”, still thought of the substitutions much earlier… and then Endoh nearly got the lead.  Then I’d be wrong.  I think many of the league’s lesser teams still aren’t sure how to contain Seba, so this method is sure to work on them for the rest of the season.  But if he’s getting swarmed, he needs help – and though I’m not Altidore’s biggest supporter, he fits the bill perfectly.

Babouli’s first touches were excellent.  Well done on a long awaited debut.  Let’s hope for some more time next go… With time to reflect and calm down, Brad Davis is still poo, but my hatred has diminished a touch.  Sharing some of the blame with Toledo and his linesperson has helped… Sporting KC’s hair game was terrible.  Man bun and the ghost of Alexi Lalas… Toronto deserved a draw.  They certainly played well enough, officiating gaffe notwithstanding.

Player ratings : Irwin 6, Beitashour 6, Perquis 7, Williams 6 [Chapman N/A], Morrow 6, Johnson 6.5, Bradley 6.5, Cheyrou 6.5 [Babouli N/A], Endoh 6 [Altidore N/A], Giovinco 6.5, Delgado 6

 

Author: Mark Hinkley

Mark is a full-time graphic designer, full-time smart ass and full-time logo, stadium and kit nerd. When he isn't writing ridiculous match reports or redesigning logos for his own amusement, he's salivating over the day that promotion and relegation occurs in MLS. You can follow him @kitnerdmark on the twitterz.

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3 Comments

  1. Rating for Williams is a little high. Why over-commit on Davis’ right foot when everyone knows he is all about his left. He was always going to cut back. Just ask Darren O’Dea

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  2. I agree that it was good performance from Giovinco, not one that was over the top. It was still a game from Giovinco and TFC that was good enough to win and most certainly draw. In fact the match was even enough that both teams could have laid claim to it and featured a midfield battleground.

    There was definitely an area for Vanney to work on. With Vanney’s subs in and SKC down a man, TFC let the game shift in favour of Sporting. While TFC had the possession advantage the passes were not crisp and KC threatened TFC’s goal and disrupted the Red’s attack. Good to have Babouli on the pitch but he has to play in the context of the team.
    What can be said of our friend Baldomero Toledo that has not already been said. Toledo was not helped by his assistants, Jason White and Eduardo Mariscal or he did not ask for help. Some suggest it was a 50-50 ball. Attackers have a right to the ball but don’t have the right to foot stomp and push their opposition in that battle for the ball. One of the few times the TFC defense looked unsettled was in trying to recover from the non-call, it is tough though to set a credible defense while raising an arm to call for a foul.

    SKC looked like a team TFC can handle in most situations. And I guess SKC look to be a force out west. So there is something we can infer about TFC this year.

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  3. BTW – will Damien Perquis get whisked away this spring for a run with Poland and the Euro? He is playing well. 🙂

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