Sounders off to Rocky Start with 1-0 Loss to Sporting Kansas City

The Sounders started their 2016 MLS regular season with a fizzle, losing to Sporting Kansas City 1-0.

The Sounders dropped their MLS opener at home to Sporting Kansas City last night 1-0 on a 70th minute goal by KC center defensive back Nuno Andre Coelho that slipped past Sounders’ goalkeeper Stephan Frei.

The match was largely decided before the go-ahead goal, however. The Sounders were left with 10 men on the pitch due to a red card handed to Oneil Fisher in the 41st minute. Here’s the challenge:

As you can see, Fisher’s challenge didn’t do much damage, if any, but Fisher left referee Alan Kelly any choice but to eject him. Fisher didn’t make any attempt to keep his spikes down on the challenge. Sliding spikes up, even as sloppily as Fisher did last night, is a no-no.

Fisher’s red card killed the strong start to the match by the Sounders. They were winning just about every offensive metric early in the match until they had to switch from Sigi Schmid’s newly-coveted 4-3-3 to a 4-4-1, with Nelson Valdez handling offensive operations on his own.

Up until that point, the Sounders had chances. Jordan Morris sailed a shot just over the crossbar just under ten minutes in. Chad Marshall hit the crossbar on another chance. The Sounders played valiantly after Fisher’s exit. They made it to halftime and into the second half before Sporting Kansas City became at all dangerous.

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Then the sky opened in the 60th minute and dumped rain on CenturyLink Field. Hey, it’s only March, after all. New surfacing was added to the field earlier this year. Coelho stung a shot from about 30 yards, and despite Frei’s excellent read on the ball initially, the ball hit the slick new surface and skimmed just under Frei’s arm.

What’s perhaps more troubling than Frei’s whiff on what likely would have been a routine save on dry turf is continuing injury concerns for the defense. The Sounders entered the game without center defensive back Roman Torres, still rehabbing from his long-term injury, and defensive right back Tyrone Mears, who missed the match with a quad injury.

The big blow came just before the end of last night’s match, when captain Brad Evans went down with a shoulder injury. It did not look good. After a midair collision with KC’s Dom Dwyer, Evans signaled to the bench immediately and walked off nursing his shoulder.

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The extent of Evans’ injury remains to be seen, but there’s a very real possibility that the Sounders will be without their top three defensemen for Real Salt Lake on March 12th.