KANSAS CITY, Kan. – That's four dropped points in Sporting Kansas City's last two home games – and all of a sudden, a sixth straight postseason appearance is starting to look like an “if” and not a “when.”
Two goals after the break put Sporting up 2-1 on the LA Galaxy on Sunday afternoon, but Landon Donovan's 76th-minute equalizer – his first goal since coming out of retirement earlier this month – forced Sporting to settle for a second straight draw in MLS play at Sporting Park, nine days after they blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 in a 3-all draw with Houston.
“You talk all week about what happened last weekend and try and correct things, and it's more of the same stuff,” midfielder Benny Feilhaber told reporters afterward. “I hope people realize that this is – I mean, basically four points dropped that probably very, very well could cost us the playoffs.
“Now, we've got to get a bunch of results on the road as well. So, extremely concerning and disappointing for our squad to give up easy points like that.”
Sporting still hold the sixth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, five points ahead of seventh-place Seattle. But in a weekend where results elsewhere in the West did them few if any favors, they missed a chance to climb past Portland into fifth place and solidify what has become a tenuous hold on a finish above the red line.
Alan Gordon's seventh-minute header staked the Galaxy to an early 1-0 lead, but Sporting got a goal and an assist from Dom Dwyer – in his first match since the birth of his son last Sunday – and led 2-1 after 69 minutes.
Dwyer fed Jacob Peterson for his sixth goal of the season in the 50th minute, then drove home the go-ahead strike after a long ball from Feilhaber and a cross from right back Saad Abdul-Salaam.
That lead lasted only seven minutes, until Donovan came on as a 74th-minute sub and scored less than two minutes later.
“It’s disappointing, for sure, especially with the way we controlled the game,” manager Peter Vermes said in his post-match news conference, “We owned it. When we scored, the momentum shifted. We made a great, heads-up play as far as Benny seeing Saad , Saad paying attention and we finish it off well. We go up 2-1 and it hurts to give up those points when there was not that much time left.
“You have to be able to close the game out at home. To climb back like we did is great, but to allow them to come back was sad.”
