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Sporting KC Game Notes | March 12, 2022 at Colorado Rapids | SportingKC.com/Game-Notes SPORTING KANSAS CITY NEWS AND NOTES

HEADING WEST AND INTO ALTITUDE

Sporting Kansas City hits the road for the first of two away matches in succession when the team heads West to take on the Colorado Rapids in altitude at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on Saturday night. Sporting and Colorado battled atop the Western Conference for much of 2021, with the Rapids eventually pipping SKC to the No. 1 seed on the final day of the season as Sporting finished third.

Both teams are coming off identical starts to the season - losing their season opener on the road before rebounding with a victory at home. Sporting fell to Atlanta United 3-1 on opening weekend at Mercedes-Benz Stadium before topping Houston Dynamo FC 1-0 at Children’s Mercy Park this past Saturday. The Rapids fell 3-0 to LAFC at Banc of California Stadium on Feb. 26 before dispatching Atlanta 3-0 at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park over the weekend.

After Remi Walter scored the only goal of the game for Sporting against Houston on Saturday, Sporting now has 15 goals from 14 different goal scorers in regular season home openers at Children’s Mercy Park since the stadium opened in 2011 and the club improved to 16-3-8 all-time in regular season home openers. That’s the best win percentage (.741) of any of the 10 charter members of Major League Soccer and includes a 5-1-6 record at Children’s Mercy Park since the venue opened in 2011.

Sporting had to wait to find the breakthrough against the Dynamo, showing remarkable patience to eventually take the lead with a 28-pass build-up leading into Walter’s strike. That patience has given Sporting a major advantage in recent years as the team has outscored opponents 43-21 from the 60th to 90th minutes in regular season matches since the start of 2020. Moreover, SKC has excelled in protecting late leads and is now 22-0-1 in the regular season when leading in the 75th minute dating back to July 2020.

SPORTING AT COLORADO: RAPID RECAP

Sporting Kansas City heads West to take on the Colorado Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Saturday night for the first of two back-to-back road games, with the team heading to Chicago the following weekend. Sporting leads the all-time regularseason series against Colorado 28-24-18, though the team has a dismal 5-18-12 record on the road in the Rocky Mountain state.

Despite the Rapids winning the West on the final day of the season, Sporting actually claimed the season series against the Rapids in 2021, going 1-0-2. Sporting claimed a 3-0 victory at Children’s Mercy Park on June 23 behind a brace from Daniel Salloi and a first MLS goal from Felipe Hernandez before seeing out a 0-0 draw at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on Aug. 7.

VUJNOVIC ARRIVES

The newest player on Sporting Kansas City’s roster has finally arrived in the U.S. and linked up with the squad. Montenegro forward Nikola Vujnovic endured a tedious immigration and visa process, eventually arriving in Kansas City on Tuesday, March 8.

Sporting announced the signing of Vujnovic on loan from Serbian club FK Vozdovac on February 15. Vujnovic joins Sporting on the heels of a career season in Serbia, where he has tallied 10 goals and an assist during the 2021-22 campaign in Serbia’s top division.

The striker ranks fourth on the league’s goal scoring charts, hitting double digits with starts in 21 of 22 league appearances for a Vozdovac outfit that sits seventh in the 16team SuperLiga.

A native of Cetinje, Montenegro, Vujnovic has bagged 16 goals and added three assists for Vozdovac over the last two seasons. He previously represented FK Podgorica in the top-flight Montenegrin First League, Serbian club Radnicki Obrenovac and Spanish La Liga side Villarreal.

On the international stage, Vujnovic represented Montenegro at the U-17 through U-21 levels from 2013-2017 before landing his senior debut on Oct. 7, 2020, in a friendly against Latvia. Three of his five caps have come in recent qualifying matches for the 2022 FIFA World Cup, including a 2-2 draw against European heavyweights Netherlands on Nov. 13, 2021, in which Vujnovic opened his Montenegro scoring account with an 86th-minute equalizer.

MELIA RECORDS FIRST CLEAN SHEET OF 2022

Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia made three saves in Saturday’s 1-0 victory over Houston Dynamo FC, leading to his 60th shutout for the club in MLS regularseason play. Melia now has 60 clean sheets since joining Sporting in 2015, which ranks most in MLS over the past eight seasons.

Goalkeeper

Tim Melia Stefan Frei Luis Robles

Club Shutouts

Sporting KC

60 Seattle Sounders FC 58 NY Red Bulls & Inter Miami 55 Andre Blake Philadelphia Union 50 Sean Johnson Chicago Fire & New York City 50 Bill Hamid D.C. United 50 David Bingham San Jose & LA Galaxy 46 Brad Guzan Atlanta United FC 46

The final meeting was back at Children’s Mercy Park where the Rapids took the lead through a controversial goal from Jonathan Lewis - who appeared to handle the ball before scoring - only for Johnny Russell to curl home an excellent free kick before halftime to seal a point in a 1-1 draw.

Sporting has not won in Colorado since Dom Dwyer scored a 92nd-minute winner on March 29, 2014 where Graham Zusi also had a goal and two assists to lead Sporting to a 3-2 victory. Sporting has drawn their last four matches in Colorado dating back to 2018: 2-2 (2018), 1-1 (2019), 1-1 (2020) and 0-0 (2021). Sporting last fell to the Rapids on the road on May 27, 2017, when current SKC defender Kortne Ford his only MLS goal for Colorado in a 1-0 Rapids victory.

FONTAS MATCHES PERSONAL RECORDS

Playing in his second straight home opener after winning the club’s Defensive Player of the Year honors in 2021, Sporting KC centerback Andreu Fontas set Opta-era (2010-present) MLS records last season in passes (2,818), successful passes (2,515) and touches (3,178). And yet, the Spaniard never had a game last season like he did on Saturday when he matched his MLS career highs in all three categories.

Fontas set a new personal record with 130 touches in Saturday, the fourth highest in club history. In addition, he matched his personal records of 118 passes attempted (T-2nd in club history) and 109 passes completed (T-4th in club history) - records he previously set against Houston on May 29, 2021.

WALTER ENJOYS MAN OF THE MATCH PERFORMANCE

Sporting Kansas City midfielder Remi Walter produced a vintage performance in Sporting’s 1-0 victory over Houston Dynamo FC at Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday, capping an all-action afternoon with the winning goal in the 60th minute of the Western Conference showdown.

Walter led all players on the field in goals scored (1), duels (15), aerial duels (6), recoveries (12) and distanced covered (6.94 miles). The Frenchman now leads all of Major League Soccer with 17 recoveries in 2022, leading Philadelphia’s Jose Martinez (15) and San Jose’s Jan Gregus (14).

Walter, a versatile midfielder who arrived in KC ahead of the 2021 season, had scored once last year while starting 11 games as a defensive midfielder (six) and 11 games in a more advanced position (eight) in the club’s midfield. After starting as an eight in Week 1 at Atlanta, Walter filled in at the six on Saturday with Uri Rosell sidelined due to injury and turned in a man of the match performance.

Walter completed his performance with the game-winning goal in the 60th minute - capping off a scoring sequence that featured 28 passes over a stretch of one minute and 48 seconds of sustained possession as Sporting methodically plotted and probed. Ten different Sporting players touched the ball in the buildup and the only player who didn’t, Khiry Shelton, momentarily froze the defense with a clever dummy on the final pass from Johnny Russell to Daniel Salloi inside the penalty area.

#SKCvHOU QUOTES

Manager & Sporting Director Peter Vermes...

On Remi Walter’s versatility: “When we recruited him, we knew that he’s an eight/six, not a six/eight. And so he’s really helped in that when we’ve had issues in the past, especially last year when let’s say we had to move Ilie back to central defender, he could easily drop into that place. And then Busio came along, but when Busio left then again, we had somebody to help us out there. So, yeah, he’s very versatile. And the other thing, too, is that he’s a really interesting guy. And I say that because when he first got here, I think it took him a few games to kind of get his feet wet and see what it was really all about. And he just kept climbing over the season. And I can tell that he’s come back completely different this season in that he just has a better understanding, better confidence, and so like him scoring today, it’s because something that he set out to do is be more productive on the stats in assists and goals. So good for him to get that one today.”

On securing a 1-0 win: “You have to manage a game, and I don’t think we were great at it today. We have some things that we have to be better at. I already told the guys we’ll talk about those things tomorrow. But one thing I do think is that we defended well. If you look at last week to this week, the one thing that we did much better was that we were much more balanced in our attack, which helped us defend situations when they won the ball much better. And so we can build off that. That’s a good step in the right direction from last week.”