Technically Speaking: #SKCvNE

Photo credit: Chris Aduama/aduamaphotograpy.com

Sporting Kansas City beat the Revs 3-1 Wednesday night to advance to the conference finals vs Houston. The most surprising aspect of this game was that the Revs were able to stretch it into the tie-breaking 30-minute mini-game, despite being overwhelmed (both statistically and in the run of play) for 90 minutes. Kansas City dominated throughout, and only through a very spirited effort by all players and standout goalkeeping by Matt Reis did the Revs manage to hang on.

In the first half, despite an excellent field with proper dimensions and natural grass, the Revs could muster practically no ball possession. Could playing at home on artificial turf hurt the Revs’ game when they switch to a real field? At any rate, the reported first-half possession stat of 28% – embarrassing enough in and of itself – was in a sense actually padded because it counts the time it took for an under-fire Matt Reis to collect the ball over and over and place it on the 6-yard-line for a goal kick.

The essential cause for this lack of ball possession was the Revs’ inclination to simply boot the ball up the field and hope for the best. Coach Jay Heaps said at the half that the Revs weren’t “taking care of the ball.” I would have said they weren’t even trying to do so. In fact, until I heard Heaps cite this as their problem, I had assumed they were under a coach’s directive to sacrifice building a possession attack from the back, in favor of clearing the ball out of their own half as quickly as possible. This long-ball strategy was rendered especially ineffective by KC’s dominance in the air – there was no doubt which team won heading honors for the day.

Some of the blame for the Revs’ haphazard play has to fall on Andy Dorman, as the defensive midfielder’s ability to shift in a micro-second from aggressive defense to poised offense is a vital linchpin of the possession game. But he can’t be blamed too much for the almost-total failure of first-half ball possession – it takes a whole team to mount a possession offense, starting from the keeper. One of my own pet peeves is the way several of the Revs’ best dribblers – Kelyn Rowe, Lee Nguyen, Andrew Farrell – try to carry the ball through midfield at speed, only to result in a turnover. Stopping the ball to look up and around is a major boost to a player’s vision and his ability to discover his options. I realize that, when I say this, I’m bucking a coaching orthodoxy that says you should receive the ball in motion and always keep it moving,. But it’s clear as day to me that a player who looks around before committing himself to the dribble is going to have a better shot at picking the best next play than the one who tries to find that play while focusing on the ball at his feet and at speed.

Substituting Scott Caldwell for Dorman at the beginning of the second half helped a little. The Revs created a few good chances to score – and even succeeded on an excellent Rowe free kick to an Imbongo side volley. I would have loved to see Juan Agudelo’s very near miss succeed in the mini- game. But these improvements were not enough to break through KC’s general control of the game. They continued to pepper Reis with good scoring chances for the rest of regulation play and right through the mini-game.

Despite playing under the gun for the whole game, the Revs would have moved forward if they could have just held KC to a 1-1 tie in game 2. Unfortunately, with less than 15 minutes to go in regulation, an unmarked Seth Sinovic scored the aggregate-tying goal on a fullback overlap. A freshly inserted and reportedly experienced Chad Barrett ‘s primary defensive job was (or should have been) to guard against precisely this situation. With the Revs poised for an aggregate win, he should have been alert and determined on defense. It is a shame he wasn’t.

The mini-game was the Graham Zusi-Benny Feilhaber show. Both gave ample demonstration why they are (Zusi) or have been (Feilhaber) USA internationals. They simply took over.

For every team that doesn’t win the championship, the last game of the season is a disappointment. This one was especially raw, because it exposed some essential team weaknesses. But players, coaching staff and fans can all take heart at how much the Revs improved over the course of this season. Next year should be fun.

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