KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Sure, Sporting Kansas City are glad to be in their third Lamar Hunt US Open Cup final in six years.
But there’s a lot they need to get done before the Sept. 20 final at Children’s Mercy Park – starting this weekend in Seattle (Saturday, 4 pm ET | MLS LIVE), where they’ll face a red-hot Sounders side on just two days’ rest after a grueling cup semifinal win over San Jose.
That can’t be helped, though. Not if the Western Conference leaders, who are just three points ahead of a four-team pack of pursuers, want to stay in the hunt for multiple pieces of silverware.
“We have to come in tomorrow, unfortunately, and have a regen[eration session],” manager Peter Vermes told reporters on Wednesday night, after his side prevailed on penalties after drawing the Earthquakes 1-1 through 120 minutes. “We’ll just have a late start. We’ve got to get the team prepared to play on the weekend, which is going to be a tough one only because we expended a lot of energy, but we’ll do our best.”
Sporting have gone past the full 90 twice during this Open Cup run, an extra hour of high-stakes work under a manager who makes a point of valuing the tournament and using his regulars rather than fielding a team of lesser-used players.
That might make for some tough roster choices and force players to dig deep into their energy reserves on Saturday, when they play their third match in seven days. But that’s just the way seasons go sometimes, especially for Sporting, center back and captain Matt Besler told reporters.
“It’s not like at the end of regulation or with 10 minutes in the game we were like, ‘Let’s go to extra time,’” he said. “And then when we are in extra time we say, ‘Let’s see this thing out and go to penalty kicks.’ We want to try and score the goals so we don’t have to go to extra time or go to penalties.
“I don’t know what it is about the last couple years. It just seem like destiny that whatever happens, whether we score a goal or give one up or we are not able to score, we go to penalties. I’m hoping we got those out of the way and hopefully we can win the final.”
Sporting have prevailed in all five of the over-90 matches they have played at home since rebranding moving into Children’s Mercy Park in 2011. And so far, they’ve never failed to lift a trophy in any season with a 120-minute outing or shootout at home.
They took the 2012 Open Cup and 2013 MLS Cup on penalties – after needing extra time to settle the Eastern Conference semifinal in the latter competition – and also have won one of two shootouts away since the rebrand, including one for the 2015 Open Cup title.
“The thing I think experience gives you is confidence,” Besler said. “In the pressure moments, when the game goes to extra time, we had a calm feeling about us, a mature approach to overtime, and more times than not we are able to pull things out."
Sporting might have gotten another 45 minutes of rest – or at least avoided the emotionally taxing penalty stage – by connecting on just one more of the 12 shots they put on goal in Wednesday’s semi.
Still, goalkeeper Tim Melia said, that kind of success in creating opportunities – even if Earthquakes keeper Andrew Tarbell did stop 11 of them in a standout performance – provides plenty of encouragement heading into the weekend.
“For me, that was some of our best attacking soccer all year, and if not for the other goalkeeper having a hell of a game, that’s a 5-1 game,” Melia said. “I just think we have to use this as momentum going into the weekend against a tough conference opponent and just build off this performance."
