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Peterson winner earns 10-man Sporting KC a victory in Toronto

MLS: Los Angeles Galaxy at Sporting KC

By IVES GALARCEP

When U.S. Men’s National Team defender Matt Besler was sent off with a second yellow card in the 75th minute of a tie game, Sporting Kansas City looked like a team that might have to be happy settling for a draw on the road against Toronto FC.

Second-half substitute Jacob Peterson had other ideas, finishing off a give-and-go with Dom Dwyer to tuck an 80th-minute winner past Joe Bendik in a 2-1 Sporting KC victory at BMO Field on Saturday night.

It was Dwyer’s clever back-heel pass that set up the winner for Peterson, and helped give Sporting KC their fourth straight win and sixth win in seven matches. The defeat dropped TFC to 1-2-4 overall in their past seven matches.

Toronto FC had the better of the play in the first half, led by the marauding runs of Dominic Oduro on the right flank, and took an early lead when Jackson latched onto a beautiful Oduro pass for a 16th-minute opener.

TFC came close to making it 2-0 on multiple occasions, but saw a Nick Hagglund shot clank off the right post in the 23rd minute, then an Oduro shot also blast off the right post in the 33rd minute.

The home team would pay for that failure to extend the lead just three minutes into the second half when Graham Zusi tucked home an 18-yard shot after a scramble in the penalty area left him with a clear look at goal.

Even after having squandered the lead, TFC looked good for a winner, but couldn’t find a second goal. Not even after Besler was sent off with a questionable second yellow card for a foul on Oduro, who appeared to embellish considerably on the contact.

Despite being a man down, Sporting KC kept pushing for the winner, and found one, pushing their unbeaten streak to seven matches and extending their lead atop the Eastern Conference to four points on D.C. United (though D.C. has two games in hand).

Here are the match highlights:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHnV8nueLNg?list=UUSZbXT5TLLW_i-5W8FZpFsg]

 

What did you think of the match? Surprised TFC couldn’t put this match away? Think Besler’s red card was deserved?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. mattm,

    SBI is a liitle funky with links.

    MLS soccer has the best all around site for new person. It allows you follow USMNT players here and abroad.

    No Short Corners, Brian Sciaretta of the NYT and Steve Goff of the Washington Post and the United States Soccer Federation ( USSF) web site are all useful. The various and sundry ESPN, NBC and SI sites all are useful.

    The USSF’s site used to be a lot more user friendly but then they re- vamped it just before the WC and it’s a mess right now. They used to have every game played by the USMNT , lineups, stats , game reports and analysis etc. going back years. Those articles still exist but you have to know what you are looking for to find them now. Hopefully it will get better but right now the site is pure garbage.

    For foreign sites, the Guardian, the Independent, The Telegraph and the BBC are useful. I don’t know if you speak and read other languages so I won’t recommend German, Italian French and other sites around the world though obviously they would be very useful to get. I haven’t found too many of the translation services very useful.

    All sites are biased because only a certain type of person writes in frequently and regularly so you have to take most of that with a grain of salt.

    In English that means most sites like SBI give you the extreme views i.e all American kids need to go abroad or American kids should all stay home. Jozy sucks or Jozy will be world class, etc..

    The middle class, thoughtful, reasonable, informed viewpoint, like it has in real life, is mostly dead on these sites.

    Really, if you are interested in a given USMNT player just type their name into Google and then look at the news on them and take it from there.

    Reply
  2. I haven’t watched many TFC games with Bradley in the lineup, but man do I suddenly hate that guy when he’s not in a USA jersey. From the first minute he was pissing and moaning about not getting the star treatment. (Of course ref-whining fodder was ESPN’s headline for their article on the game). Where was this anger and tenacity last month?

    Reply
    • Bradley hardly endeared himself to many fans with this performance, I think. He definitely earned his yellow card for dissent, and he got whistled for more fouls than anyone besides Besler and Jackson. To top it off, he could arguably have been given a second yellow and sent off for his late tackle on Feilhaber late in the game, but wasn’t and decided to complain about the officiating (which, granted, was horrible, but it was horrible to both teams) to the press afterwards. A negative, petulant performance from him.

      Reply
  3. Very entertaining match! Both sides played tough all night. Bottome line: TFC couldn’t finish. You can’t do that against a team like SKC and expect to come away with points. The red card was ridiculous. Hopefully MLS will overrule it.

    Reply
    • Pretty sure Besler’s red card cannot be overturned because it was the result of two yellows, and yellow cards cannot be appealed. The closest thing he’ll get to justice is if the DisCo slaps Oduro with a one game ban for embellishment to match Besler’s one game ban, which is what should happen, because honestly, at this point I think only suspensions are going to get simulation out of the game, players clearly don’t care about risking a yellow card for the chance of getting an opponent sent off.

      Reply
  4. As a neophyte soccer fan (as of the past month) who can only really get excited about the USMT, do you or any site explicitly follow the USMT players or potential players in their pursuits outside of USMT… feel like that’s probably the gateway to the game for folks like myself… start following some of the players between world cups

    Reply
    • This website actually has great coverage of what you’re talking about. The only thing to adjust to is knowing the names. This website is great for people who are already enjoying soccer, and possibly know some names…so there may be a learning curve for you. But overall, this website has more news (in one place) for usmnt players and such, as well as plenty of MLS coverage mixed in there with it.

      Reply

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