SKC draw with RSL Called Early Due to "Brawl"

In the final preseason game for the Sporting KC first team, the Wizards came back from 2 goals down to tie 2-2 in a game that was reportedly called early after a bench clearing brawl. After Alvaro Saborio and Fabian Espindola had given RSL a 2-0 lead KC responded first with a PK from Kei Kamara after Roger Espinoza was fouled in the box. KC equalized through Omar Bravo, his first for Sporting KC.

Things apparently were chippy throughout with some hard fouls not being called. The situation reached a boiling point when Espinoza fouled Espindola with was called "dirty" by one person at the game. Both benches apparently cleared. Bravo was mistakenly given a red card instead of Espinoza as the referee tried to sort things out. According to what RSL staffers told the Salt Lake Tribune, Bravo then came back onto the field and kicked Morales. You can read a full break down from the Tribune's website with quotes from RSL players' Twitter feeds. It would appear that it was Jason Kreis that pulled his team off the field leading to the abandoning of the game. SKC's players have been fairly quiet about the incident since the game ended, except for this tweet from Kamara that just says the game was physical. Teal Bunbury, who was providing some play by play of the action stopped posting basically after the Bravo goal.

The two teams are still scheduled to play tomorrow morning this time in a game that will feature reserves. Based on the reports hopefully it's a different referee.

This is one of those interesting times in "journalism" where pseudo journalism Twitter creates the story. Without something like Twitter this story doesn't have anywhere close to the legs it does now. You'd have stories from the players, but with a tool like Twitter you get the raw emotion of the players fairly shortly after it happens.