After a red hot start, Sporting Kansas City has cooled off in recent weeks. At 4-4-1, they currently own the six seed in Major League Soccer Western Conference. Of course, there is still a lot of soccer to be played and Sporting will need to pick it back up if they want to keep pace with clubs like FC Dallas and LA Galaxy.

Sporting jumped to the top of the table after winning their first three matches. Beginning the season with a 1-0 victory in Seattle, they won their first home game against Vancouver 2-1. Sporting then proceeded to hold the formidable Toronto offense scoreless, winning 1-0 and recording a clean sheet against the team of MVP Giovinco and the USMNT’s Jozy Altidore.

Following an impressive start to the season, Sporting lost a home match against Real Salt Lake 2-1, beginning the skid they are currently on. Sporting did manage to pull off a road win against the New York Red Bulls, but let’s be real, there aren’t many teams worse than the Red Bulls.

Since then, Sporting has lost three matches and finished one match in a draw, including a tough home loss to the Colorado Rapids. Sporting has also fallen to FC Dallas and San Jose and tied with Vancouver.

They will look to rebound in their upcoming matches against LA Galaxy and Houston.

Sporting is currently on a challenging road trip, traveling for six of eight matches. They could gain some ground during a home stand of three consecutive matches at Sporting Park, and six of eight matches at home between May 15 and July 10.

Unsurprisingly, forward Dom Dwyer is leading the team in goals thus far this season with 4, as well as 10 shots on goal. Also promising is the fact that three different players have multiple assists already this season, including defender Saad Abdul-Salaam, midfielder Graham Zusi and Dom Dwyer himself.

Sporting does not want to be in the same position as they were last year, scrambling to barely make the playoffs, earning the western conference six seed. They are too talented for that. Luckily, MLS is still far off from playoff time, and Sporting has plenty of time to right the ship.

The game, although not great in terms of technical prowess, showed great spirit by both teams. Initially the Timbers were up 1-0 after the 57th minute. Then Kevin Ellis pulled a goal back for Sporting in the 87th minute, leading to extra time.

Extra time led to even more excitement with Kristian Nemeth scoring a goal for Sporting in the 96th minute. It looked like Sporting had found their way to a comeback despite losing their starting goalkeeper, Tim Melia, to injury before extra time began. However, it was not meant to be. Just two minutes before the end of extra time the Timbers scored, which led to the game being decided on a penalty kick shootout.

Things then became even more interesting with all 11 players on the field at the end of extra time taking penalty kicks. Sporting KC hit the post twice, and one of those shots managed to hit both posts and still not fall into the back of the net. The Timbers ultimately won on a penalty kick and a save from their goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey.

While Sporting KC did not end up winning the game and continuing in the competition, they did have the chance to be part of one of the most back and forth games in MLS playoff history. Both Sporting KC and the Portland Timbers fans can agree that the game is an instant classic. While many Sporting fans are upset that they did not win, they can at least take solace in the fact that enriching the history of the league is not altogether a loss.

The Kansas City Chiefs are no longer the most favored team in Kansas City. We are well on our way to becoming a multi-sport city. When the Chiefs won the Super Bowl in 1969, Kansas City (KC) found its first competitive sports team to follow. Through the next decade, Kansas City was a football town until 1985 when the Kansas City Royals won the World Series. Baseball gained the support of KC sports fans, transforming the “Land of the Free, Home of the Chiefs” into a baseball town. However, eventuallythe past achievements of both the Royals and the Chiefs muddled the Kansas City sports identity. Then, because both teams failed to win another title for decades, KC lost its sports identity altogether. Fans were confused. Was it a football town or a baseball town?

This question was answered some decades later in 2013 by neither a baseball nor football team but a newly rebranded soccer team: Sporting Kansas City (Sporting KC). Following the change from the Kansas City Wizards to Sporting KC, and, shortly after hiring ex-player Peter Vermes as the head coach, Sporting KC started a sports revolution in the city and throughout the nation. SKC won a Major League Soccer (MLS) Championship title in 2013, increasing the team’s preliminary support. This win meant more for KC than just another title; it signaled a change in the sports dynamic of the city. A sense of lost identity regarding whether KC was city for football or a baseball now seemed to have an answer: KC became a multi-sport city.

All three major teams in KC found success in 2013-2014 seasons: Sporting KC finished 17-10-7, the Royals narrowly finished third in their division at 86-76 and the Chiefs finished with a record of 11-5.

While the idea of KC having a lost sports identity was prevalent event after Sporting’s MLS championship, KC’s identity as a big sports city was ultimately cemented in 2014 with the Royals narrowly losing the World Series after seven games. With attendance increasing each year for the last few years for Sporting and the Royals, and with the Chiefs climbing the average attendance ranks each year in the National Football League, all of the major sports in the City of Fountains are now bigger than ever. Kansas City is now a sports city: for football, baseball and soccer.