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Sporting Kansas City put out a lackluster performance Wednesday night as they fell to the Houston Dynamo 1-0. Will Bruin scored the goal for Houston and Sporting KC essentially lost whatever glimmer they had of the Supporters Shield contention.
They also lost Benny Feilhaber and Matt Besler for their match with the Seattle Sounders on Sunday as both of them earned a fifth yellow card, giving them each a one-match suspension.
The first half did not feature anything special from either team as they both were unable to get in close to the box. Sporting KC controlled the ball for the first twenty minutes but the Dynamo started to reign back control and forced the game from the middle to out wide. They had many set pieces, a speciality of theirs with Brad Davis taking them, pushing on Sporting KC's weakness on free kicks. Fortunately for the away side, the Dynamo did not put any set pieces away on the night.
What did happen in the first half will affect Sporting KC more on Sunday. Matt Besler earned a yellow card after a tackle that put him over the limit for yellow cards in a stretch of games, suspending him for Sunday's match with the Seattle Sounders.
The half ended with a nil-nil scoreline.
The 67th minute saw the Dynamo take advantage of an anemic Sporting KC side. DaMarcus Beasley moved into the box after getting past Seth Sinovic and then slid a ball across the face of goal where Will Bruin was there to tap it in for the score.
The match seemed to swing Sporting KC's way in the 70th minute when Dynamo defender Boniek Garcia was shown a second yellow and ejected, giving Sporting KC a man advantage for the final twenty minutes of the match. However, they would not capitalize.
In the 88th minute, as Sporting KC pressed for an equalizer, they lost another man for Sunday. Benny Feilhaber earned a yellow card and pushed himself over the card limit, suspending himself for Sunday as well. That would be the last excitement of the match as the Dynamo held on to a 1-0 win.
After the match, Peter Vermes ventured away from his normal defense of the team and called a spade a spade.
Vermes on performance: "It was horrific."
— Sam McDowell (@SamMcDowell11) September 24, 2015
Up next for Sporting KC is the Seattle Sounders on Sunday at 4 p.m. After that is the biggest match of the season, the US Open Cup final in Philadelphia next Wednesday.