Sporting vs Red Bulls 10/26/2014 Review

This was the first time since the Conference Final against Houston that I was able to make it back to Sporting Park for game. I have to say being away from the stadium has even more made me appreciate and realize how great of a sporting environment this is. Even with a team that had struggled (especially at home) this year the game day environment is amazing. I am not trying to take anything away from Arrowhead Stadium or Kauffman Stadium as these both can have great environments as well. With the stadium set-up, sold out games with standing room only, the sound system and video screens and boards I don't know how the crowd can not be worked up before a game.

However this was the best part of the night. I am trying hard to not make this a year end review of the team, because we are in the playoffs and still have at least one more game this season. That being said unless this team can raise their play to another level there will only be one game left in the season. Sporting's playoff game will be against the same team in which they lost to 2-0 tonight on the road. I guess I would have hopes that Sporting could take it to the next level, but I have not seen that yet this year. I would also have hope if this was a close game in which Sporting had a bad break that cost them the game, that was not the case, in fact they are lucky they only lost 2-0.

My one gripe from all MLS games this weekend in which playoff teams were playing was the referees were not handing out cards like they had the rest of the season. In a game with 25 fouls (10 committed by Sporting and 15 by New York) not one caution was given. While this really had no impact on the result of the game it did make it more chippy and physical than it should have been.

Sporting were not sharp at all last night. Their passing was bad and even easy passes were missing the mark,. So bad that when Sporting were making a first half sub (assuming based on performance because no one saw an injury) there were question on which player they would be taken off. The first goal was a direct result of poor passing by Sporting. Poor passing almost lead directly to two other goals as well if it was not for good defensive plays (one made by the player making the poor pass).

Sporting did have a few chances of their own, but they could not put any of them away and to be honest a couple of those would have been spectacular goals with they would have been able to. By late in the game the team seemed to have ran out of ideas and were just kicking the ball towards the goal, most of the time not even finding the target. Sporting was definitely missing Feilhaber last night as there was very little creative about their attack and the final ball to Dwyer were missing. In fact I think Dwyer played a couple of the best balls in front of net all night, but he was not their to finish so they were wasted.

Bradly Wright-Phillips closed out his Gold Boot winning season with 2 goals. Collin could not stop him last night, as Wright-Phillips was two to three step quicker when the ball was played in and even with Collin's good closing speed and tackling it was not enough.

Sporting needs to get healthy, rested, sharper and creative in the next four days or Thursday night at Red Bull Arena will be the end of the season.