Match Report: Sporting Kansas City 0 - Montreal Impact 2, A New Streak Starts

Sporting Kansas City lost their first home game of the season Saturday against the Montreal Impact(an expansion side) 2-0. The goals came in the 30th and 64th minute from Felipe Martins and Patrice Bernier. Both goals went unanswered from what should have been a well-rested Sportign KC side that looked out of ideas when it came to attacking in the final third. Of course, don't take anything away from Montreal who played very well and deserved the win 100%.

With the result last night a new streak begins. This time however Sporting KC won't be so proud of it, that is of course, a streak of losing has begun. The last time Sporting KC lost two games back to back against MLS opposition was almost exactly 50 weeks ago. Meaning for just a little under a year we saw Sporting KC get right back up on their feet after a loss. Does that mean table-topping Sporting KC is beginning to stumble?

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So while the Montreal Impact fans will be penciling this shock victory down into their short record books Sporting KC fans will find it tough to sleep at night with such a dreadful performance from their hometown boys.

It could of been different though you know, the statistics do a nice job of pointing that out. Look below for some of the most telling ones:

The loss to the Impact was actually the first time in nearly 3 weeks where Sporting KC had maintained more possession than their opponents. But obviously, it is what you do with that possession that is the most important. Montreal took advantage of their limited opportunities and Sporting KC didn't, it's as simple as that, there's no need to over-analyze it.

It wasn't some underground scheme by the league to embezzle points from Sporting Kansas City. Nor was it that Peter Vermes was out-coached by Jesse Marsch or that the different-than-usual kits somehow screwed the team over. We just sucked - enough said. Even league leading teams are allowed to drop home points and it can literally just be because they didn't play well on that given night.

Davy Arnaud Returns to KC

So, in case you didn't know Kansas City soccer legend Davy Arnaud returned to LIVESTRONG Sporting Park the other night. Davy had been with the club for a little under 10 years before he was traded to the Montreal Impact during this year's off season.

I wasn't quite sure if we would actually see him or not because he started the game on the bench. But then I saw him start to warm up and the assistant coach pulled him over to talk tactics with him - a sure fire sign he was about to make an appearance.

I was sitting quite nicely in the air-conditioned Shield Club but decided I'd hop out to snag a video of Davy.

Player Ratings

Jimmy Nielsen 6 - Don't take anything away from Felipe Martins who scored Montreal's first goal and had a great long distance drive, but I can't help but feel Nielsen was caught napping on that one.

Chance Myers 5 - It was a pretty uninspiring game from Chance who was probably looking to make up for his own-goal against Portland with a good performance against Montreal. Unfortunately, he failed to show up.

Matt Besler 6 - Just an average game for Besler. He and Aurelien were caught on the build up to the second goal though.

Aurelien Collin 7 Man Of The Match- The Frenchman had easily been KC's most on form player over the past few weeks heading into this one and showed signs of grabbing a 7th league goal for Sporting KC with headers that were more often than not narrowly off frame.

Michael Harrington 5 - As much as I wanted Michael to impress the coaches while the injured Seth Sinovic was out Harrington failed to step up to the plate. He's certainly a long way away from the form we saw in 2010.

Julio Cesar 6 - I can't make up my mind about Cesar's rating. I think only he and Vermes know exactly what his position is and where he needs to show up at certain points of the game. That being said, he clogged the area in front of the Cb's pretty well.

Roger Espinoza 6 - Like most of the guys on the squad he gave a below average performance last night. While he was good at moving the ball forward he looked, how should I put this, "off"?

Graham Zusi 5 - It's very easy for me to sit here behind a computer and make comments on professional athlete's performances in a game and I try not to do that too much. But, Zusi was all around bad last night. Most of his balls were astray and he looked frustrated that he couldn't do anything offensively for SKC.

Kei Kamara 5 - It takes guts to publicly apologize on twitter to over 10,000 followers for a performance and I commend Kei for that. However, he just didn't look all their tonight. But the performance had been coming. You could see that in previous matches he wasn't looking as sharp as he had in the beginning of the season.

CJ Sapong 5.5 - I thought CJ got unlucky a couple of times during the game with some of his shots but he really wasn't holding up possession well enough. As soon as he got the ball his first intention was to spin and go forward with a defender in front of him instead of playing a simple lay off pass back to the midfield.

Bobby Convey 5 - Convey played well against Portland a couple weeks back and I was tempted to give him another chance but it was a very bad performance individually from him last night and all together as an attacking unit.