Monday Morning Fullbacking - Stop me if you've heard this one before...

So another really really good performance, on all fronts. Even numerically! 70% possession! 87% pass success! 51% of duel won, but 68% of aeriel duels won! We even comitted less fouls than Philly!

And yet missed opportunities once again meant that Sporting Kansas City could only manage a draw against the Phildelphia Union.

It's hard to say whether this is a result of teams bunkering or a different home vs road mentality or what. Last year I looked at some stats to see where action occurs on the field and found that roughly half the time, teams seem to play much more bunker ball when playing SKC in Kansas City than they do during the home leg, but half don't. So I'm not sure it's fair to say that all teams park the bus when the come here. To their credit, I think Philadelphia did a good job game planning this one, picking their moments to go forward and largely countering with balls out wide to wing players.

Graham Zusi could have buried them with back-to-back goals I think. Man, seeing his shot go wide while still celebrating the first was rough. Felt like that would have been a sure back breaker, though of course with this Kansas City team anything is possible...

Not having Matt Besler probably hurt a little, but that was still a very winnable game and while I don't mean to lament what's largely been a good season, I know we'll be pointing back to game's like this at the end of the season and wondering "what if".

Anyway, here's some auto generated player ratings and again, a culled "key stat" to try to summarize one positive from each players performance.

Perhaps the only "surprise" is seeing Toni with the Man-of-the-Match nod, but perhaps not. He's made good use of his time here and had an excellent game. I've been impressed and hope he continues to start.