Well, that was no fun. Until tonight, we hadn’t lost two consecutive matches in 44 outings. In a flash, that record is gone, and in its place, we see a loss against two admittedly good opponents — two matches with two first-half goals, two matches with two goals caused by lapses in concentration.
Unlike Saturday’s match against Columbus Crew, though, those lapses weren’t simple defensive lapses, but that will be of little assurance now. The first goal came from a simple midfield pass, and the second came from a long throw into the box. The first goal in particular was entirely preventable, but it was hardly unjustified for a team that could hardly get out of its own half early on.
Sporting Kansas City are certainly no pushovers, particularly at their luxurious new ground — though I’m admittedly tired of the PR around it. Yes, we understand that it’s a good stadium. Let’s move on. So it’s 14 matches without a loss for the former Wizards and it’s two big fat Ls for the Claret and Cobalt. Strange how things turn, isn’t it?
At any rate, we were poor, and it’s clear from Jason Kreis’s comments that he knows it as well. Kreis, on team morale:
It better be real bad because my morale is real bad. We need guys right now to feel that pain because I honestly feel that we’re at a precipice for our season right now. We need a huge game on Saturday, a huge effort, we need these guys to pull together and give absolutely everything they have because to have three losses in a row would be monstrously bad.
It’s nice to know that he sees the problems we see, but by the same token, it would be nice if he had a simple solution for those. Ah, if it were that easy.
Let us not forget the horror tackle that led to our being up a man for 30 minutes. Roger Espinoza, apparently upset at a Nat Borchers tackle earlier in the second half, had a bit of a rush of blood and made a shocker of a tackle on our captain. Jumping in, both feet off the ground, from behind, and with his legs wrapped around Beckerman, Espinoza can have no complaints.
It’s the sort of tackle that leaves players out for months — it was only marginally better than the tackle that crippled our Javi. It was heart-in-mouth stuff, and it’s the sort of thing you don’t want to see in football — ever. If Kyle Beckerman were to have his leg broken there, you know it would be a topic of discussion. With a nice turn of luck, Kyle was OK and continued just fine. Still, fine or not, tackles of that sort should be cut out of the game, and we’re lucky our captain was able to continue.
Fabian Espindola was seen stamping around the pitch, and it’s to the point now that his attitude is becoming disruptive. His teammates — Andy Williams at one point was seen to stop his run and hang his head after Espindola got in the way of the ball — are clearly fed up as well. Jason Kreis has a mountain of a task on his hands to control the Argentine. Let’s hope he’s up for it.
More later, when things are a bit more settled. Just a final word: The boys better be up for the New York Red Bulls match on Saturday at the Rio Tinto. We’ll be there supporting them, win, lose or draw, but a third loss would be very, very taxing.
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