Episode 143 - SKC Loses to FC Dallas, Referee Discourse, and USMNT Drama

Sporting KC finally returned to the friendly confines of Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday Night, but were unable to give the fans a victory as they fell to FC Dallas 4-2.  SKC was able to take the early lead again in this one off of a pretty curling shot from the top of the box by Shapi Suleymanov, but in a familiar refrain the team was unable to maintain their defensive posture in central midfield, and FC Dallas used it to pull them out of shape prior to a nice crossed ball from Shaq Moore onto the foot of Petar Musa equalized.Then things got a bit weird, as the referee made a couple tight calls against Sporting KC leading to a penalty for Lucho Acosta, and an early trip to the showers for Khiry Shelton as Sporting had to play down a man for the last half hour plus stoppage time while already down 2-1 on the score sheet.  I think it is fair to credit SKC with the fact that they did still try pretty aggressively to attack Dallas’ goal even with the man disadvantage, but that led to two more fairly simple finishes for Bernard Kamungo and Lucho Acosta, meaning that outside of a late consolation goal from Santi Munoz, that SKC would be heading into this 10 day break having two straight losses after having seeming to have somewhat righted the ship prior to that..The USMNT drama continued last week with Christian Pulisic and Mauricio Pochettino trading public barbs, before they thoroughly dismantled a Trinidad and Tobago team that seemed mostly disinterested in even attempting to play in their Gold Cup opener.  That wasn’t the only fun performance this weekend though, as the Kansas City Current continued their dominance at the top of the league while still missing several key players.  They did let Louisville back into this one late but then Temwa did what Temwa does and iced it after a nice ball from Claire Hutton sent her running down the flank and Temwa did the rest.