Sporting Kansas City were able to come away with all 3 points after another come from behind performance this time in Houston, on the heels of a Dejan Joveljic brace and Santi Munoz’ first goal in Sporting Blue.  Houston piled on quite a bit of pressure in this one, but SKC were able to survive the onslaught and come away with a 3-1 victory.

There were a number of positive performances, including Goalkeeper John Pulskamp continuing to improve and play with confidence, Jacob Bartlett having one of his better performances in recent weeks, and of course Joveljic being clinical in front of net.  Unfortunately it wasn’t all positive as SKC really struggled in the opening minutes of the match, requiring two very nice saves from Pulskamp to keep Houston off the board until Sebastian Kowalcyk’s banger put SKC behind early, a trend that is becoming worryingly familiar.  Interim coach Kerry Zavagnin was able to make some adjustments both at the hydration break and at halftime that allowed Sporting KC to mitigate Houston’s attack while they looked to create and finish chances of their own.  There remain some questions about whether Sporting KC create the volume of chances necessary to maintain this level of success though, and whether there need to be more structures in place to help them do so.

Finally, we’ll talk about the Sounders players protesting the amount of the Club World Cup bonus they receive, the Fire finally potentially getting a stadium that doesn’t suck, the KC Current invading the USWNT roster, and a couple other potpourri items before a quick preview of SKC’s trip to LAFC this weekend to take on the team that recently punched their ticket to said Club World Cup last weekend.