Listen "While Imperfect, Sporting KC's Tactics Showed Promise Versus Colorado"
Episode Synopsis
For the Glory KC is back with the 144th episode of the show!Sporting Kansas City broke a nearly two-month winless streak on Saturday night against the Colorado Rapids. The streak went back to their last win, also against the Rapids, on July 4th in Commerce City. And while "winless" is technically right, it was worse than that. Between victories over Colorado, Sporting KC were 0-5-1, with just a single draw against NYCFC.The defense was still flawed, and defense often starts further up the field, so there is blame to go around. Colorado should have scored far more than the two goals they put in, if not for outstanding individual efforts from John Pulskamp, Robert Voloder and Ian James. But it was something else that stood out on Saturday.With Manu Garcia still unavailable due to injury, Kerry Zavagnin finally used Santiago Munoz as a straight up #10. You could call it a second striker, but he was floating all over creating opportunities. He was involved in so many attacking sequences and seemed to unlock Sporting KC's creativity. Not every sequence ended with a shot, but there was so much promise.Another move I've been asking for is not starting all three strikers together. It leaves no impact subs on the bench to play forward. With Mason Toye starting on the bench, it was a combination of him subbing on and Santi unlocking the midfield that led to the game winning goal. Munoz played a perfect ball to Toye to finished with precision to push SKC over the line for their seventh win of the season.Of course, Sheena and I talked about a lot more Sporting KC happenings in this episode, including:Our favorite goal of the night (there were so many good candidates)Pulskamp heroicsThat James save off the line!Daniel Salloi showing man strengthInternational callups and so much moreThe KC Current did what we basically expect them to do at this point. Just keep winning. They've won twice since our last podcast and clinched a playoff spot. They aren't that far away from locking up the NWSL Shield. But ultimately, the season will be defined by what they do in the playoffs. Before we get there though, we talk through the victories over the Portland Thorns and North Carolina Courage.In the Digital Crawl, we hit on a few more topics, including:St. Louis fire their Sporting DirectorBarbra Banda done for the yearThe USWNT game at CPKC StadiumHere is a rundown of topics and start times:Sporting KC’s big comeback victory - 8:22SKC make moves and Intl. Call-ups in the SKC roundup - 54:24KC Current keep winning - 1:01:03Strife between ownership & the NWSL in the Current roundup - 1:18:32Digital Crawl - 1:26:47Upcoming GamesSKC II vs. Real Monarchs, Sat. Sept 6th at 12:00PM CDTUSMNT vs. South Korea, Sat. Sept 6th at 4:00 PMKC Current @ Bay FC, Sat. Sept 6th at 9:00PMSporting KC vs. Austin FC, Sun. Sept. 7th at 6:00PMAs a special gift to For the Glory KC listeners and KC Soccer Journal readers, Backheeled dot com is giving away 30 days of their amazing, independent American soccer coverage for free. If you decide you want to turn that into a paid membership, they'll give you 10 percent off too. Just follow this link!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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