It isn't only that Sporting Kansas City take a four-match shutout streak into their bye weekend. It's that they've barely let opponents put a shot on frame.
Over the stretch of the clean-sheet span, scoreless draws against Chicago on March 16 and New England on March 23, a 2-0 victory over Montreal on March 30 and last week's 1-0 home win over D.C. United, Sporting have given up just three shots on goal.
Not average. Total.
"They're playing every roll of the ball, all of the time," said goalkeeper Jimmy Nielsen, borrowing a phrase from manager Peter Vermes. "They're so focused for 90-plus minutes. Everyone on the field is taking pride in the way they want to defend."
That defensive stinginess hasn't been limited to the usual back line, either. Sporting's top four defenders -- right back Chance Myers, center backs Matt Besler and Aurelien Collin and left back Seth Sinovic -- were only together for the two most recent shutouts.
Mechack Jerome filled in at right back for the Chicago and New England games while Myers was out with a quad strain, and Ike Opara took Besler's spot against the Revs while the 2012 Defender of the Year was on U.S. national team duty.
"That just proves it's a team system," Besler told MLSsoccer.com on Tuesday. "It's not the back four. It's more the system and the way the team plays. It's the pressuring style, and it makes it easy to defend if the pressure's good. It just proves that guys can step in, and if they buy into what our team's trying to do, then it makes it easy for everyone."
Collin agreed, saying the new arrivals benefit from a system designed to break up opposing attacks all over the pitch.
"The last two years, we've had the same group," he said. "Any new player who's coming in, from the bench or from another team, they came into a group that already has a mentality, a way of playing. So I think we make the job easy for them to adapt themselves. You can see that on the field."
Besler and Collin, both named to the MLS Best XI in 2012, both stressed that everyone on the pitch for Sporting deserves credit for the shutout streak.
"Even the striker is part of the best defense," Collin said. "When we are on attack, the goalkeeper is part of the attack for our team."
