Sporting Kansas City can’t hang with St. Louis City SC, falling 3-1 on the road

Sporting KC went into Saturday night’s road match against St. Louis City SC with designs on putting an end to the cross-state rival’s postseason aspirations.

So much as a draw would’ve gotten the job done. Instead, Sporting fell 3-1 at CityPark in St. Louis. (St. Louis City was eliminated anyway when Minnesota beat the Colorado Rapids.)

With Saturday’s defeat, KC cedes the season series with St. Louis City SC for the second straight year.

KC manager Peter Vermes made eight changes to the lineup he used in Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup loss as Major League Soccer play resumed. Robert Voloder, Jake Davis, and Zorhan Bassong were the only retained starters.

“I thought the changes that we made within the group, I thought those guys all performed really well,” Vermes said. “Some of them lasted probably longer than we expected.”

The final score doesn’t reflect some of the good Sporting KC did throughout the match. Alenis Vargas and Stephen Afrifa were dangerous on the wings, and the midfield engine of Bassong, Memo Rodriguez and Remi Walter covered a lot of ground.

Those were some of the players Vermes highlighted as standouts. But in the end, as has been the case all season, momentary mistakes were costly.

St. Louis jumped out to a 2-0 lead. Cedric Teuchert picked up a loose ball at the top of the box and curled a powerful effort past Sporting KC goalkeeper John Pulskamp in the 33rd minute.

Rasmus Alm scored in the 54th minute, tapping in a loose ball at the back post. The goal came from a simple goal kick, where St. Louis attacker Joao Klauss bodied Voloder and turned to create the breakaway.

Afrifa responded for Sporting 10 minutes later with a first-time effort against Burki off a pass from Jake Davis. Afrifa said the pass was weighted perfectly for what he called his “signature” shot.

“That’s a signature shot of mine, just being able to curl the ball in,” Afrifa said. “The second I’ve seen Jake play it, seen the weight on it, that was my first decision, and (I) just hit it. It came off very well.”

As Vermes seemed ready to bring on usual starters Johnny Russell, Daniel Salloi, and Alan Pulido, St. Louis made it 3-1. Eduard Löwen scored on a deadly counterattack that found KC’s defenders well out of position.

All three would eventually come on, but it was too little, too late. Vermes said his timing for sending them in was not based on the number of minutes accrued recently by the trio (Wednesday’s U.S. Open Cup final, for instance, went to extra time).

Instead, he said he liked how the front three of Afrifa, Willy Agada and Alenis Vargas were playing.

“Those guys played really well in the game,” the manager said. “They were doing a good job, all those guys.”

Next Saturday is the final home game of the 2024 MLS season for Sporting KC. It’s a rematch against LAFC at Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kan.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry .danielkc@gmail.com .