Sporting Kansas City looking like a dangerous team

Sporting Kansas City won their third straight match and also recorded their third straight shutout. SKC is looking awfully dangerous and with the regular season winding down, could they be a legit contender to win the MLS Cup?

For Sporting Kansas City fans, making the postseason seems to be a given every year. Peter Vermes does a great job coaching this squad year after year and always puts them in a good position to succeed.

The last few years, however, Sporting Kansas City hasn’t done so hot in the postseason. One of the teams who handed SKC another painful first round loss was the Portland Timbers. As you might recall, the Timbers were the team that won in penalty kicks and SKC nearly had it, but a kick went off the goal post. It still pains me to watch to this day.

Portland has been a tough team for SKC over the years, but they were no match for the good guys on Saturday night. SKC struck early and never looked back. Diego Rubio had the first two goals of the match (28″, 37″) and Johnny Russell, a late sub, was able to find the back of the net right before stoppage time was set to begin (89″ to be exact).

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With this victory, not only does SKC gain another three points and continue to move up the Western Conference standings, but this is their third straight shutout. When the offense and defense is clicking at the same time, that’s a team to watch out for down the stretch.

Obviously Rubio is a talking point. He had two goals on Saturday and continued to be red hot with this being the fifth straight game in which he either scored or had an assist on a goal. He hasn’t played a ton this season, but when he’s out there, he’s effective.

Rubio’s sub was none other than Krisztian Nemeth, making his first SKC appearance since 2015. It was good to see Nemeth back out there and hopefully he’ll be incorporated more over these next few months.

When SKC’s match ended, they were tied for the Western Conference  lead. FC Dallas’ game was delayed due to weather and didn’t get under way until later that evening. While there are still several games left, Sporting KC looks unstoppable right now.

They’ve hit their annual “slump” already (hopefully that’s the only one) and this game against Portland was a big test for them. They passed with flying colors and now hopefully can continue to rack up points and earn a home playoff game.