A Weather Tarnished Weekend for Kansas City Soccer

For the Glory KC is back with the 143rd episode of the show!Weather was top of mind in the two Kansas City versus Orlando matches as both games experienced three plus hour delays.Sporting Kansas City initially looked like they were going to keep some of the positive vibes from the San Diego game going when they had a solid first half against Orlando City. Then the second half happened. While the lightning delayed the game, the second half absolutely lacked electricity for Sporting KC.Personally, I think the tactical changes were all wrong and a lot of it went down to the substitution patterns and decisions. Maybe it was because all three center forwards started the game, so there were none to bring off the bench. However, it felt like it all centered around team captain Zorhan Bassong.As soon as Bassong was forced to move to left back for a fatigued Tim Leibold, everything fell apart. Sporting KC interim manager Kerry Zavagnin switched to a very conservative midfield by bringing on Nemanja Radoja and Jacob Bartlett and flipping into the 4-3-3 out of the team's second attempt at a 4-4-2. If the team wanted to push for a win, a back three likely shores up the defensive weaknesses and keeps Bassong and Jake Davis in the midfield together. It may not have worked, and hindsight is 20/20, but the decisions made were a disaster. Or maybe it was just the players inability to execute.If instead it was a back three of Jansen Miller, Alan Montes and Robert Voloder, the team could have gone much more attacking with the wingbacks and not ruined the defensive chemistry of that Bassong/Davis double pivot. Sheena and I weigh in on that, and a lot more from the 3-1 loss to Orlando.In the SKC round-up we have stories on Gianluca Busio, Latif Blessing, SKC II and a lot more.The KC Current had weather issues of their own on Saturday. As many pointed out when the schedule came out, a 3:00PM start time in August for the Orlando Pride match-up was never going to work. The league should have realized it wouldn't work far before they left fans sitting in the stadium for hours with updates every 15-minutes before a larger delay was announced.When the game was finally played, the product on the field suffered and KC broke their eight-game winning streak and earned their first draw of 2025. All while failing to score for the first time ever in CPKC Stadium. It's hard to maintain your homefield advantage when so many fans had left due to the heat.In the Digital Crawl, we hit on a few more topics, including:The US Open Cup Semifinals are setKC Comets legend Nacho Flores retiresAnd Premier League Mornings Live is coming to Kansas City!Here is a rundown of topics and start times:Sporting KC Collapse in Orlando - 2:38SKC Round-Up - 33:05Heat Ruins KC Current vs. the Pride - 47:55Digital Crawl - 1:02:48Upcoming GamesKC Current @ Portland Thorns, Sat. Aug. 23rd at 9:00PM CDTSKC II @ St. Louis City 2, Sun. Aug. 24th at 6:00PMSporting KC @ Seattle Sounders, Sun. Aug. 24th at 8:15PMAs 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.