Sporting Kansas City loses opener at Portland after conceding early goal to Timbers

Sporting Kansas City kicked off the 2023 Major League Soccer season with a 1-0 loss at the Portland Timbers on a cold and rainy Monday night in Oregon.

Things got ugly for Sporting within the first 10 minutes as Portland scored the only goal of the game. KC defender Ben Sweat tried to keep the ball in play along the goal line but missed and then couldn’t be traced back to keep Santiago Mosquera on the side.

Mosquera got a pass from behind Sporting’s back line and saved his shot low and hard past KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp.

Should Sweat have let the ball go wide for a corner or cleared it wide?

“I would agree to both solutions,” said Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes.

Sporting turned up the heat from there and looked a lot better, especially Remi Walter and Erik Thommy in midfield. Thommy came closest to scoring for Sporting but David Bingham made two great saves for the Timbers.

“The effort, the will, the passion was there in the game, apart from that mistake on the first goal,” Vermes said. “But apart from that the team played well, all the substitutes came and were energetic and certainly made an impact (on the game).”

Sporting kept the Heat up in the Timbers’ defensive line but never found the net. Daniel Salloi, Willy Agada and Roger Espinoza had great chances that they couldn’t convert.

“We were all over their gate, all over them,” Vermes said. “And unfortunately we couldn’t put anyone in.”

The changes themselves were ambiguous. Agada’s late header, which went wide, was Sporting’s best chance of the half and perhaps the game, barring Thommy’s first-half shot. Vermes lamented that his players were sometimes too hesitant to get the ball into the box and instead attempted to tear apart the Timbers’ defense.

As it’s the first game of the season, Sporting KC are still improving the final moves and timings in their attack. It’s usually one of the last pieces to come together for a team. But Salloi didn’t want to use that as an excuse.

“I thought we had our chances and we could have taken one easily,” he said. “It’s football. If you don’t score, you can’t hope that the other team will make mistakes and miss their chances.”

Sporting KC were without Nemanja Radoja, Tim Melia and Alan Pulido. Johnny Russell and Gadi Kinda were also known and expected failures for the first match.

Both Tim Melia and Nemanja Radoja missed a couple of weeks of preseason with injuries and Vermes didn’t want to risk them – or Pulido – in a cold, wet game on artificial turf.

“I want to make sure that the guys that are on the team and ready to play aren’t wounded or more importantly they aren’t in a place where they aren’t fit enough,” Vermes said. “They won’t be on the team until they are.”

Originally scheduled for Saturday night, the game at Providence Park was pushed back to Monday due to winter weather in the Portland area.

Sporting KC (0-1) next plays the Colorado Rapids Central at 8:30 p.m. Saturday before heading home for the club’s first game of the season at Children’s Mercy Park.

Sporting KC’s home game against LA Galaxy is scheduled for Saturday 11 March at 7:30pm.