Match Thoughts: Sporting Kansas City vs. New England Revolution

Matt Reis is consoled by Sharlie Joseph (Getty Images)

The New England Revolution had a bad day Saturday in Kansas City. They really got their hats handed to them by a superior Kansas City side. Yes they were down a man for most of the game, but they really didn't look all that into it prior to that. I fear it might be a long season for the Revs supporters.

New England did have a couple of chances very early. Benny Feilhaber hit a shot wide in the 5th minute, and Lee Nguyen followed with another miss a few seconds later, but that was pretty much all she wrote for the Revs offense.

In the 9th minute Matt Reis came way out of goal to make a tackle on his left side. Sporting still had the ball, and Roger Espinoza sent a shot in on goal that looked sure to catch Reis out. Fortunately for the Revs, the shot hit the post and bounced away.

Then it all fell apart in the 14th minute. Stephen McCarthy got into a scrum with C.J. Sapong just outside the Revs area. There was nobody else between Sapong and the goal, and the foul was whistled and McCarthy was shown the red card. The Revs felt hard done buy as there really wasn't any kind of goal scoring opportunity and the play was headed toward the corner, but he was the last man. and the Revs faced the daunting prospect of playing down a man for the rest of the match.

A good team like Sporting is usually going to capitalize off of this, and they did in a big way. In the 28th minute the Revs failed to clear a scrum in front of their goal and Graham Zusi eventually tapped the ball home to give KC the 1-0 lead. Then in the 39th Kei Kamara had a shot saved by Reis, but the ball fell right back to him and with no defenders around to help, Kamara easily banged the ball into the goal to give Sporting the 2-0 lead going into half time.

Sporting came out and iced the game very quickly in the second half. In the 47th minute Seth Sinovic sent a back bass to C.J. Sapong in the box. Sapong easily slammed in the goal to give Sporting the 3-0 lead.

It was a score that held to full time as the Revs were never able to really mount a serious campaign on the Sporting goal. Instead, Benny Feilhaber and company continued to complain to the referee about every little thing as opposed to playing football, and Sporting easily closed them out to collect the three points.