Protection, possession key to Sporting Kansas City's early success

KANSAS CITY, Kan.—On a wet night at Children’s Mercy Park, facing a high-pressing opponent, Sporting Kansas City didn’t always take care of the ball as well as they usually have this season.

You couldn’t tell by the scoreboard, though.

Sporting conceded just two shots on target and rang up their fifth shutout of the season, stifling injury-depleted Real Salt Lake in Saturday's 3-0 victory, extending their club-record home unbeaten streak in MLS play to 13 matches.

“We probably could have kept the ball a little better today,” said midfielder Benny Feilhaber. “And I think that’s something we can continue to improve on. Usually, we’re not used to playing at home and having teams press us that high, and Salt Lake did well to press us, caused a few turnovers – nothing that was costly in the sense of giving them a breakaway or anything, but we lost some balls out of bounds and took some bad touches, so that aspect could be better.

“Having said that, we didn’t give up balls that were very, very dangerous in the sense of giving them easy chances on goal, and that was something that we’ve talked about from the last few years, and it’s something we’ve worked on in practice and done much better on in games.”

Conceding dangerous turnovers in their own defensive third – whether on ill-advised square passes or by not taking care of the ball – was Sporting’s Achilles heel in 2016, especially early in the season.

This year, though, they haven’t conceded a breakaway – and have given up only one goal in the run of play, out of three goals conceded through eight matches.

“Some of it is that you value the ball as a team,” said manager Peter Vermes, in his post-match news conference. “The other is that I think we have a better group of guys to keep the ball, and there’s an importance on the team for that. Possession doesn’t win games, but what it does is that it limits the opportunities for the other team – especially if you don’t give it up in critical areas, and I think we realize that.”

And when Sporting did give up the ball against Real on Saturday night, they were quick to recover and deny easy looks at goal.

“What we did really well was that we compacted the field defensively, especially in the final third,” Vermes said “And we didn’t really give anything away. Nothing was really dangerous against us, and that’s a credit to the guys and the way they recognized the situation.”

One thing that has helped Sporting avoid disastrous giveaways in their own end is an abundance of targets for balls being played out of the back.

“Everybody has to want the ball, no matter where you are on the field or who has it,” said captain and center back Matt Besler. “You have to be an option. And when everyone’s an option, the guy on the ball has opportunities to play not one person, but he has an opportunity to play a second or a third or a fourth, and that makes it easier to make that pass.

“I think overall, we’ve just been a lot better in possession, which allows us to step up the field and make sure that we’re in the proper position so that if we do turn it over, we’re able to defend properly.”