Sporting Kansas City was expected to have a bit of a cup-winning hangover for their MLS match against D.C. United, but didn't experience anything of the sort on Saturday night. They looked extremely sharp and were the better side against the Black and Red throughout their 2-1 home win.
Teal Bunbury started again over C.J. Sapong, who still isn't quite 90 minutes fit, and got his team on the scoreboard early with an impressive header on a corner kick. He lost Chris Pontius on a run away from goal and headed back across his body, beating Bill Hamid at the far post.
D.C. United had an impressive quick answer, with Andy Najar setting up Nick DeLeon for the 23rd minute equalizer. Najar cut in from the right wing and created space for himself with some impressive trickery before lofting a cross towards the back post. DeLeon took the ball down, cut back inside and poked the ball past Jimmy Nielson to level the score.
That was by far the most impressive bit of attacking play that D.C. United would produce in the match. They were second best for the rest of the second half, then got badly outplayed to begin the second half. Graham Zusi scored the goal that had been coming since the second half began in the 63rd minute, finishing off a centered pass by Kei Kamara from close range.
Kansas City continued to control the match until the final whistle, though they employed some hilariously bad time-wasting tactics in stoppage time, picking up a couple of yellow cards. In another time-wasting measure, they also gave young Barcelona product Oriol Rosell his first team debut, a 30-second run out at the end of the match.
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