S3E19 - For the Glory KC is back with the 84th episode of the show!
Sporting Kansas City just keep tumbling. They are down to 12th place in the Western Conference, just a single point ahead of 13th and 14th placed San Jose Earthquakes and the Portland Timbers. They got there with a 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo on Saturday night.
Sheena and I set out to try and figure out what is wrong. I have a theory that they actually need to go away from the 4-2-3-1 formation and back to the 4-3-3. Folks get tired of that formation, but the 4-2-3-1 is not working! They haven't won a single game in five tries rolling it out. Let's recap:

We first saw it against the LA Galaxy and blew a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2
Then again against Portland and blew a 3-0 lead to tie 3-3
Lost to Inter Miami in this formation
Tied St. Louis 3-3
Lost to Minnesota United

We talked about the outstanding performances of Memo Rodriguez and a lot of middling performances all around the roster. Peter Vermes agreed in his post-match press conference. There was a lot of discussion around a "change in mentality." Vermes said, "its' not all the guys, it's quite of few of the guys though." He also called the Houston goals "atrocious" and "amateur, at best." And above all else, he said a lot of players lacked effort. There was talk in benching players, suffering and so many other topics in a short seven-minute presser. Daniel Salloi gave some tough interviews in the locker room too. 
We try to figure out who lacked effort and who is going to get benched, and there are a lot of potential candidates. We also discuss briefly the 120-minute win over Union Omaha to advance in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup to face FC Tulsa in the Round of 16.
Thankfully, we still have the Kansas City Current. While they only mustered out a draw Wednesday on incredibly short rest and travel nightmares against Vlatko's former team, the Seattle Reign, they won again on Sunday against the North Carolina Courage.
In the Digital Crawl, we hit a few topics, including:

Espinoza and Zusi are back... sort of.
SKC are the 41st most valuable franchise in the world
And a bunch of other stuff covered in this story
Bia, Chawinga and DiBernardo earn NWSL honors
Neil McGuinness is the new LAFC Technical Director (but SKC only could find Gavin Wilkinson?)
14-year-old Cavan Sullivan is one to watch

Here is a rundown of topics (and approximate start times):

Northern Lights - 1:38
Sporting KC lost at home again - 5:20
Vermes post-game Presser after Houston - 21:59
SKC (barely) advance in the US Open Cup - 43:37
KC Current have another solid week - 50:11
Digital Crawl - 1:04:01

Upcoming Schedule:

Sporting KC at Austin FC, Saturday, May 18th @ 7:30 PM CST
KC Current vs. Racing Louisville, Saturday, May 18th @ 8:30 PM

Spotify took away our ads, so we turned on "Listener Support." Don't feel obligated, but if you have a few spare bucks and are a fan of the pod, we'd appreciate your donation.
Big thanks to Splitter Conspiracy (listen to them here) for our theme music made with the permission of the KC Cauldron.

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