Banged Up Sporting KC Draws With New York Red Bull

An unrecognizable Sporting KC pulled out a draw against Thierry Henry and the New York Red Bull on Tuesday night, 1-1. Toni Dovale scored his first career MLS goal in the match.

Sporting Kansas City (5-4-4), depleted by national call-ups and injuries, started several young players and backups against the superstar led Red Bull. Chance Meyers was the most recent Sporting player to be lost to injury, and sat out with regulars Ike Opara and Peterson Joseph. Add in the loss of Graham Zusi and captain Matt Besler, and Sporting is missing much of its core.

Apr 5, 2014; Kansas City, KS, USA; Sporting KC player Igor Juliao (40) looks on prior to the game against Real Salt Lake at Sporting Park. Mandatory Credit: Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports

Those losses have provided opportunities for some of SKC’s younger talents, most notably Tony Dovale and Igor Juliao. Those two young players – the latter of which is only 19 years old – led Sporting on a mad rush to start the match. Sporting created four opportunities in the first 10 minutes of the match, including Toni’s first career MLS goal. Juliao almost had one himself in the second minute.

“These guys are good soccer players,” Vermes said to Toni and Igor. “I have confidence in all of the guys on the roster, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the roster.”

Vermes noted the intelligence of both Toni and Igor as soccer players. Unlike many of the athletes U.S. club teams seem to acquire, both Toni and Igor are both soccer players first in addition to being good athletes. This has helped both of them adapt to Sporting’s complicated system.

It was the youth and inexperience along the with the quality of the six million dollar man Henry that cost SKC a chance at three points. Over-aggressiveness, as Vermes would call it, in the middle of the park opened up space for Bradley Wright-Phillips to find space. A beautiful ball from Henry gave Wright-Phillips a clear look at goal of which he took advantage.

“We played a good game,” Vermes would say afterwords. ” We scored a goal.” Vermes would add that Sporting had several chances for more goals – which was true – but they couldn’t find the back of the net.

If not for the emergence of Tony and Igor, Sporting could be in far worse trouble than they appear to be heading into. The tie against New York leaves Sporting in second place in the Eastern Conference, four points behind the conference leading New England Revolution.