In a win or go home game Kansas City came out and played with the urgency needed to start the game on the road in New York (actually New Jersey). Sporting looked as good as they had in the last 10 games to start. The changes to the lineup did help, especially having Benny back out on the field.
As the first half went on New York started to open up a few chances, but luckily for Sporting none of of them went in. The first half ended in a 0-0 tie and I think Sporting was happy about they. They were playing a more defensive game making sure that they had as many bodies behind the ball as possible. This showed in the first have possession numbers as Sporting only had the ball 38.7% of the time, the only 5 minute interval that they had the majority of the possession in the first half was the first five minutes. In the majority of the games this year Sporting would dominate the possession numbers, so they weren't playing their normal game, and that was not a bad thing.
Seven minutes in to the second half Sporting capitalized and a poor pass by the Red Bulls at mid-field and Benny lead a breakaway with a perfect pass to Dwyer as they were approaching the top of the 18 and Dwyer did not waste the perfect pass and he hammered it home giving Sporting a 1-0 lead. I think the hope at this point for Sporting was that they could continue to try and counter attack and make sure to keep bodies behind the ball and sneak out of NY/NJ with a win.
New York did a much better job in the second half of changing the point of attack and spreading out, opening up the Sporting defense a little more than they did in the first half. The the pure skill (much like Felihaber and Dwyer on their goal) of Henry and Wright-Phillips took over and Henry broke the Sporting defense inside the area and played a beautiful ball back to Wright-Phillips who did what he has all year long and buried it in the back of the net to tie the game at 1-1 in the 67th minute.
New York kept the attack going and you could tell that Sporting, who were playing their fourth game in 13 days were getting tired. However there was a feeling that Sporting would at least be able to get the game in to extra time and maybe even to penalty kicks (which might have been the only way Sporting was going to win at that point). In the 90th minute Oyongo played a high cross in to the box that seem to take forever to come down. While the ball was in the air I am not sure what or why Sporting did what they did. Kronberg who was on his line started out looking like he was going to go get the cross and then went back, Collin who was marking Wright-Phillips (the best goal scorer in the league) backed away from him leaving him unmarked. When the ball finally came down Wright-Phillips was on the edge of the 6 yard box unmarked and headed the ball to the far corner and in to the back of the net giving New York a 2-1 lead with just four minutes of stoppage time to go.
Sporting were not able to present much of a challenge in the last four minutes and ended up having their season end.
Last week I was hard on the referee for not at least carding a few players when there was 25 fouls in the game. The same referee was on this game and he stayed consistent with his calls (which is all I ask from a referee). This game there were 27 fouls (19 committed by Sporting) and he did not issue any cards again.
The final stats show why Sporting were not able to win this game and just how much New York dominated the play in this game. Sporting only had 28.2% of the possession, completed only 64% of their passes and had only 244 passes compared to 577 by New York. Sporting could only get three shots with two of them on target while giving up 13 shorts, five of which were on target.
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