Sporting KC on Saturday will play Seattle for the 11th time in regular season play and 13th time in all competitions. KC though has not won once in the last nine MLS games, and last 11 in all competitions against the Sounders (the US Open Cup in 2012 technically is a draw that was then won on penalty kicks). The only win that KC has all time against the Sounders was in the very first meeting on April 11th, 2009 at Century Link Field.
So this week for Throw Back Thursday, I'm looking back on KC's lone win over the Sounders. Unfortunately I've been searching all over the net the past few days trying to find the full highlights of the game, but have been unable to find full highlights of the game.
While KC had some good early play (according to my write up on the game at the time), they struggled to create opportunities, but the game changed in the 29th minute when Herculez Gomez was played in on goal against Kasey Keller. Keller came out to challenge Gomez and went to ground as Gomez tried to chip it over him. The chip struck Keller's arm as the Sounders' goalkeeper was outside the box. Keller was given his marching orders and KC was up a man for 60 minutes. KC though didn't test Keller's back up, Ben Dragavon in the remaining 15 minutes of the first half.
The second half saw the Sounders control the game for long stretches. KC much of the time looked like the team that was down a man during that time. The Sounders though couldn't break through KC's defense. Then in the 80th minute as KC got forward, the ball came to Davy Arnaud who was about 30 yards from goal, he took a touch and fired a long range shot that Dragavon seemed to get a late jump on as he only got a touch on it as it went into the side netting to give KC the 1-0 lead. KC's defense was able to hold up down the stretch and were the first team to take points off the Sounders in their expansion season.
The lineup for the game features two players that are in the KC team now, Matt Besler, and Roger Espinoza.
Kevin Hartman, Lance Watson, Aaron Hohlbein, Jimmy Conrad, Matt Besler, Herculez Gomez (Michael Harrington 77), Santiago Hirsig (Michael Kraus 64), Jack Jewsbury, Josh Wolff, Davy Arnaud, Claudio Lopez (Roger Espinoza 82).
We were also the first team to score on the MLS Sounders.
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