Defense and Villain Appreciation

For the Glory KC is back with the 132nd episode of the show after an unexpected week off. 

Sporting Kansas City had a very busy week loaded with (frankly, ridiculous) travel. After nearly 5,000 miles, they picked up two hard fought points against St. Louis City SC and San Diego FC. The draw against their cross-state rivals definitely felt like a victory as they snatched the point from the jaws of defeat. The San Diego game was more of a slog, as though a team had travelled a ton, heavily rotated their lineup, missed one of their two Designated Players and were playing a superior opponent at home. Despite that, they still earned a draw.

Sheena returns after a brief hiatus, and we work our way through both of those games as well as a brief mention of the 1-0 loss to the Portland Timbers from last week we didn't get to cover.

The theme of the three games was definitely defense, villains and goalkeeping. All three get high marks as Shapi Suleymanov and Jansen Miller tortured the St. Louis fans. Pulskamp also stood on his head across all three games. And Robert Voloder may have cemented himself as the starter next to Miller at center back, with a revolving door of fullbacks playing next to them.

Since our last episode, MLS also released roster compositions for all 30 MLS teams. Sporting KC have no surprises with two open international spots and the ability to add a Designated Player along with a U-22 Initiative player, or two U-22 signings. To aid in that addition this summer is $1,928,679 in General Allocation Money (GAM), of which at least $500,000 is burning a hole in their pocket and has to be spent. 

Also, we get into the movement of the LAFC/SKC game from a crowded week to an international break weekend.

The KC Current got back to their winning ways with us taking the last week off. They beat Bay FC 4-1 before heading on the road to take out the Orlando Pride 1-0. The biggest questions coming off the victory that further cemented their first-place status is, at what cost did it come? Alana Cook, Debinha and Temwa Chawinga all left the game injured.

In the Digital Crawl, we touch on a few more topics, including:

• SKC II slightly improving on their struggles
• Former SKC player updates on CJ Sapong, Kei Kamara and Gianluc