His long scoring drought over, Claudio Bieler is looking forward to doing what he did earlier this season – putting a lot of balls in the net for Sporting Kansas City.
“I'm a forward,” Bieler told reporters through a translator after converting a 7th-minute penalty kick in Saturday's 3-0 win over Columbus. “I need to be scoring goals.”
Before Saturday's match, Bieler hadn't scored since July 13. But the Argentinian center forward still leads Sporting with 10 goals and has 11 across all competitions since arriving in the offseason as the fourth DP in club history.
“It was hard, because I hadn't been playing much the last two or three games,” Bieler said. “I knew that was a big PK to take in this moment, but I'm always confident taking PKs. I've taken PKs in big games: Copa Sudamericana, Copa Libertadores. I'm just happy it went in.”
Bieler also is the fourth Kansas City player to reach double digits in his first year with the club. Preki and Digital Takawira did it in 1996, when the Wiz were one of the league's start-up franchises, and Miklos Molnar did it in 2000 when the Wizards won their only MLS Cup.
“I'm very happy, very excited about that,” Bieler said. “I'm also happy that we won, and I need to keep on scoring.”
Bieler made plenty of other contributions for the shorthanded East co-leaders on Saturday, in addition to his goal and his assist on Soony Saad's tally later in the first half.
“I thought he just played really well tonight,” manager Peter Vermes said in the postmatch news conference. “His play between the lines was excellent. He was laying off balls, holding the ball for us and he was very busy making sure that they were not comfortable with the ball in the back. That is the kind of play that we want, and when he brings that he is an extremely valuable player for us.”
