Sporting KC 2-1 Toronto
Sporting Kansas City moved back into first place in the Eastern Conference with a 2-1 win over Toronto FC on Saturday afternoon at BMO Field. C.J. Sapong scored twice as Sporting KC won their third consecutive League match.
Sapong scored a goal in each half for the first multi-goal game of his career. Sporting KC improved to 16-0-2 when Sapong scores in MLS competition.
Post game quotes:
Peter Vermes – Manager, Sporting KC
Comments on the game…
Based on the weather and the field conditions I knew it was not going to be a pretty game. I thought that for the most part other than the goal we gave up we managed the game pretty well. The first twenty five minutes we were pretty good and then the last fifteen they were in our half of the field way too much. Second half I thought we were much better, we played most of that half until the very end in their half of the field which is what we wanted to do from the outset. Scoring first and getting the second one to go ahead again shows a lot of grit and desire by the group at this time of year which is what you are looking for and it keeps us in the running. Winning points like this on the road are not easy. I say this all the time; I don’t think that there is a team in the league that you can say that any game is going to be a lay-up. There is nobody in the league that way, there is too much parity and so this was big for us to get the points away from home.
Thoughts on getting a victory away from home…
You have to keep getting in form, stay in form and make sure that you are at your peak when you get to that point. Obviously we want to get into the playoffs and the best positions we can to give ourselves home field advantage. That’s really what we are fighting for at the moment.
On the performance of C.J. Sapong…
The first thing I would say that the last three or four games he has started to really up his game. His commitment in desire for training and playing both sides of the ball has increased from game to game and today he got rewarded based on his great movement off the ball on both goals that he scored. But you have to credit the other guys for the service they gave him as well. I thought our service was actually really good today and our movement around the box was good as well.
Ryan Nelsen – Head Coach, Toronto FC
On being dismissed…
No. I think it was the linesmen. He was under a bit of pressure, the crowd was on him. He had made some obvious errors. He was just under a bit of pressure. It was nothing directed. We just said you’re under a bit of pressure now. You got to concentrate. I feel for these referees they are under a lot of pressure. Especially when all the critical decisions really didn’t go our way. Which kind of caused a bit of tension from our bench as well and from our players. I felt for the referee.
On conceding the two goals…
It’s always going to be, look at their goal. It was even softer than our two. The ball comes in our guys about to score and it hits the guys hand. It’s a battened penalty and it’s a goal. When Justin Braun’s about to hit the ball, Aurelien Collin isn’t even looking at the ball and grabs him and throws him over the end line. That’s another goal and we would have won the game. They’re just errors, they’re soft errors, they’re soft goals, but I should be talking about having two penalties, two clear penalties, stone cold penalties and we would have won the game and there coach is talking about the soft goals that we gave up. But then again that’s what probably caused the frustration in the crowd and frustration on the bench. Again it was a tough game in those conditions for everybody including the referee and the linesmen.
