To hear the Columbus Crew and Sporting Kansas City talk about their season-opening losses last week, one would almost swear they were working off the same script.
“I hope this game will work like a wakeup call,” Columbus coach Henrik Rydstrom said after his side’s 3-2 defeat at Portland.
“The first thing we said in the dressing room is it’s a wakeup call,” Kansas City midfielder Manu Garcia said after a 3-0 loss at San Jose.
The teams will try to improve on their first matches when they meet Saturday night in Kansas City.
It fell apart all at once for Kansas City in San Jose. The match was scoreless through 40 minutes before two quick goals, the second after a bad pass teed up the Earthquakes in their attacking end, forced SKC into chase mode with a depleted roster.
That was something Kansas City wasn’t equipped to do. The visitors managed just one shot on goal.
“I think the first 40 minutes were actually pretty interesting, pretty good,” first-year coach Raphael Wicky said. “We had some moments going forward.”
Wicky and SKC are starting what some might call a daunting rebuild. The club shuffled its roster after missing the playoffs last year but presently has just 22 players, eight fewer than the league’s roster limit.
Meanwhile, Rydstrom was hoping to generate more offense in the season opener. While two goals generally are enough to win, he and the team were aiming for more. Outside of goals from Wessam Abou Ali and Diego Rossi, there wasn’t much happening.
“We depended too much on their ability,” Rydstrom said. “We had some nice diagonal attacks where we hurt the opponent, but overall, no. Especially our build-up was below our standard. I’m disappointed.”
A bigger problem was the team’s continued weakness with counterattacks. Portland scored its first two goals in that manner.
“I know the players more and more,” Rydstrom said, according to the Columbus Dispatch. “So, my message to them was clear. We don’t go out and play with these kind of behaviors where we hope that the opponent will not be good. We need to make sure we decide our own destiny, and we didn’t do it in the game.”
–Field Level Media
