By Jason Davis – WASHINGTON, DC (May 6, 2011) US Soccer Players -- Despite the new name and badge, Sporting Kansas City isn’t an expansion team. They didn’t have to scrabble together a roster from the rest of the League’s unwanted, or hire a new coach, or install a system unfamiliar to their new squad. There was continuity in Kansas City, experimental “sports club” model notwithstanding, because the soccer team isn’t new. It’s just sporting a new coat of paint.
Then again, the former-Wizards, now conveniently abbreviate-able as “SKC”, might as well be a first-year MLS side for all the obstacles their facing in the opening stages of 2011. SKC has a stadium on its way. The excitement from fans there - forced to endure the ignominy of supporting their team in a minor league baseball stadium for the last three seasons - is palpable. The new venue gleams in photos and videos, everyone who takes a tour of the building oohs and ahs, and the debut of the Livestrong Park on June 9th will be another milestone worth celebrating for MLS fans everywhere. Unfortunately for SKC, the June opening meant the team was forced to go on the road for the first ten games of the season.
No small handicap, that.
It makes it tough to assess any progress the team has made this season over last. SKC, then the Wizards, finished third in the weak Eastern Conference in 2010 but missed the playoffs. The squad was strengthened over the off-season, and there was real hope that 2011 could be a breakthrough year for Peter Vermes’s program. A few key contributors departed through various MLS mechanisms, but there was young talent and an incoming Designated Player (Mexican striker Omar Bravo) to buoy confidence. This was a new look club, in more ways than one, with ample ability to jump up in the standings and snag a shot at the MLS Cup.
Just eight weeks into the season, if SKC is going to make that possibility a reality, they’re probably going to have to come from the bottom of the standings to do it. More than halfway through their away tour of the League, Sporting KC has earned a grand total of four points from six games. The defense is porous, Bravo has missed significant time due to injury and suspension, and Vermes is struggling to find the right combination of players.
The stadium opening at the end of the trek will do wonders for good feelings, but they might not last long if the hole is already too deep to escape. If Sporting wants to host a playoff game at Livestrong Park in the first year, they have a lot of work to do.
Sporting isn’t the first MLS team to have a season’s schedule unbalanced between home and away matches because a stadium was due for delivery in the middle of a campaign. Chicago played their first nine games on the road in 2006 while waiting for Toyota Park to open. The Fire managed to make the playoffs that season, finishing third in the East, so there’s a precedent for success. But MLS was a different league even just five years ago, and the Fire managed to get ten points out of their road trip.
Further back, the Galaxy did a nine game season-opening stretch on the road in 2003 in the lead up to the Home Deport Center’s opening, and the Crew did the original version, playing their first seven on the road before Crew Stadium debuted, all the way back in 1999. Both clubs made the playoffs. Neither example seems applicable to the much bigger league of 2011.
Sporting is missing the psychological advantages that come with playing in their own stadium, of course, but it’s more than that. Constant travel takes a toll. Rebounding from a loss is much more difficult when another flight, another hotel, and another hostile crowd is constantly on the horizon. Short breaks from the grind for Open Cup matches at “home” (high school facilities) and byes (which Sporting gets this week) are nothing more than cruel teases that do little but bring a temporary respite. Those breaks might even be detrimental if players become too comfortable before the jarring reality of life on the road returns.
Return it will, with Sporting traveling to LA, Seattle, Colorado, and Toronto before they christen their new building. Except for Toronto, none of those games look like obvious chances for three points.
Naturally, the back half of their schedule is loaded with home dates. After alternating between home and away dates through June, they’ll be on the road just three times from July through August.
For Sporting, more than any other team in Major League Soccer, the story of their season will be played out in two distinct acts. They’ll have to quickly establish home field advantage to have an chance of validating their 2011 season with a trip to the playoffs. An average home record won’t get it done. Livestrong Park will need to become a fortress. Draws there will might as well be losses.
In the bigger picture, 2011 will be a great year for soccer in Kansas City no matter where Sporting lands in the standings. Roots, in the form of a shiny venue built for soccer, are finally in the ground. Yet if this is going to be more than just the first year after a rebrand and “the year the stadium opened”, SKC will have to overcome a mountainous handicap. Unlike turning on the lights at Livestrong Park come June 7th, it won’t be as easy as flipping a switch.
Jason Davis is the founder of MatchFitUSA.com. Contact him: matchfitusa@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davisjsn.
