KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Sporting Kansas City's locker room was silent and all but empty. The few players remaining had little to say.
They were not only beaten at home for the first time this season, but also run off the pitch by the Western Conference's eighth-place team, suffering a 5-0 loss to the San Jose Earthquakes at Sporting Park.
“It's hard to explain a game like that,” said winger Graham Zusi, who came on as a second-half sub after missing three matches with a calf strain. “That's something that should never happen, especially at home. We have a big apology to give to the fans who came out tonight. That's just not us, and it's something we just can't let happen again, simple as that.”
Center back and captain Matt Besler offered even less after Sporting's worst loss of the year and biggest home defeat since a 7-0 blanking by Chicago on July 4, 2001. All Kansas City can do, Besler said, is try to regroup for Saturday's match at Columbus – which Sporting will play without star midfielder Benny Feilhaber, who was sent off on a straight red card in the 71st minute for a last-man professional foul on Quincy Amarikwa.
“It's a quick turnaround, and we win and lose as a team," Besler said. "We always win and lose as a team.”
Manager Peter Vermes provided plenty in his postmatch news conference, none of it complimentary to his squad, which came in on a high after last week's home triumphs: Sporting beat Real Salt Lake 3-1 in their midweek semifinal for the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, then scored three times down the stretch Saturday during a 4-3 comeback victory in league play against Vancouver.
“I thought our backline was absolutely horrific,” Vermes said. “It's the reason why we gave up the goals that we did. We were nonchalant.
"We didn't play together as a group. We weren't good in our individual defending, and we were very, very poor with the ball and our entry balls out of the back – which in turn allowed them to pick us off and at the end, they did a great job of countering us.”
Against Vancouver last week, Sporting trailed 2-0 at halftime and 3-1 after 80 minutes before rallying. On Wednesday, they trailed 1-0 after just three minutes, and 3-0 at the half.
“The difference between last game and this game is [San Jose] finished three goals in the first half, not only two,” said Vermes, whose club entered the match 12-0-4 at home – across all competitions. “At three, it was almost insurmountable for us. You can't replicate that from week to week, and I told that to the guys. It was just about us trying to minimize the bleeding in regards to us keeping the ball and being better with it.
“But we deserved to get beat like that, because we didn't play well.”
Wednesday's game was the fourth in 12 days for Sporting, and Saturday's will be their fifth in 15. But Vermes and his players aren't seeking outs.
“It has nothing to do with the number of games,” Zusi said. “That's a horrible excuse, if anybody gives it.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
