The month of February has arrived, and with that comes a monumental showdown between Sporting Kansas City and Deportivo Toluca FC in the 2019 Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League Round of 16. Sporting KC will host the first leg at Children’s Mercy Park on Feb. 21 before traveling to Mexico for the decisive second leg on Feb. 28. Tickets to the contest at Children’s Mercy Park are now on sale at SeatGeek.com as Sporting hosts its earliest competitive match in club history.
In the 20 days leading up to Feb. 21, SportingKC.com will rattle off a 20-day Champions League Countdown, hitting all the relevant storylines surrounding the two-legged fixture. From history and geography lessons to number crunching, player matchups and coaching backgrounds, this daily series will set the stage for a pivotal battle in which two successful sides aim to take their first steps toward Champions League glory.
To make sweeping conclusions about any preseason campaign would be unwise, but to identify a handful of key takeaways is always worth the chore.
Sporting Kansas City put the finishing touches on their 2019 preseason, presented by Children’s Mercy, on Wednesday with a 4-1 win and a 1-1 draw in a pair of 90-minute split-squad matches against MLS rivals Houston Dynamo. And with six tune-ups in the books, Manager Peter Vermes’ side can now focus entirely on the sizable task at hand: knocking off Mexican club Deportivo Toluca FC in the Scotiabank Concacaf Champions League Round of 16.
The opening game of the home and away series will take place on Thursday at Children's Mercy Park live on Univision Deportes Network, followed by the decisive second leg on Thursday, Feb. 28 in Toluca, Mexico. Concacaf announced today that both matches will stream live in English on the Yahoo Sports app on iOS and Google Play, as well as at YahooSports.com.
With Sporting KC’s preseason ledger complete, we offer five takeaways from the club’s performances over the past month and how they can be applied to the forthcoming showdown with Toluca.
1. Nemeth in Form
Krisztian Nemeth appears to have earned the starting role as Sporting KC’s center forward, and it’s not hard to see why. The Hungarian striker scored two excellent goals in Wednesday’s defeat of Houston and led the team with five preseason strikes. With the likes of Johnny Russell, Daniel Salloi and Gerso Fernandes providing consistency on the flanks, a confident and in-form Nemeth could be the X-factor that propels Sporting in the Champions League and throughout the MLS regular season.
“For Krisztian to get two (goals) the way he did, and the way he finished his second one, was a different level,” Vermes said of Nemeth’s brace on Wednesday night, singling out his impudent chip shot at the end of the game. “I didn’t know what he was going to do, and for him to finish the way he did shows a lot of confidence in his quality.”
Nemeth wasn’t the only attacker to shine bright in Arizona. Russell scored in four of his five preseason appearances and appears capable of replicating his brilliant MLS debut last year. Gerso Fernandes tallied a team-high three preseason assists, including two against Houston, and that’s not to mention the club’s reigning Golden Boot winner Daniel Salloi. The 22-year-old didn’t play Wednesday but had a goal and two assists in four tune-ups.
“Johnny’s performance on both sides of the ball today was excellent, and with Gerso and Nemeth, the way the front three worked on both sides of the ball was really, really good,” Vermes said postgame. “It shows a lot for the future, which I’m excited about.”
3. Competition for Spots
That brings us to item No. 3: the competition for starting spots appears to be stiff. Seth Sinovic and Rodney Wallace both earned starts at the left back position, Kelyn Rowe and Roger Espinoza swapped starts in midfield, and Vermes deployed multiple combinations of a three-man attack in his signature 4-3-3 setup.
Depth in numbers can only be a good thing as Sporting prepares to juggle the Concacaf Champions League with the start of the MLS regular season.
The 11th-year veteran is showing no signs of slowing down at the age of 32. Like a fine wine, Zusi seems to be getting better and better at mastering his effectiveness as a right back. He scored two jaw-dropping golazos and added three assists in five preseason appearances, offering a reminder of his game-changing potential in the two-legged series versus Toluca.
5. Center Back Pairing
When Sporting KC traded Ike Opara to Minnesota United FC, the door was opened for any one of multiple center backs to join captain Matt Besler at the heart of the backline. Spanish veteran and former FC Barcelona defender Andreu Fontas appears to have won the spot. The 29-year-old played side-by-side with Besler for 300 minutes throughout the preseason, during which time Sporting KC conceded just two goals—one of which from a midfield turnover beyond their control.
Besler and Fontas have yet to be tested like they will against Toluca, but the duo have nonetheless built a strong sense of familiarity with one another over the last month. That could prove decisive in their bid to keep Los Diablos Rojos off the scoresheet.
