KANSAS CITY, Kan. – Chance Myers could hardly have asked for a better comeback night: a record crowd, a hard-fought victory and more minutes than he had been expected to see in his first match in more than a year.
“It's awesome to be back playing in front of my biggest family,” Myers told reporters on Tuesday night, after starting and going 55 minutes in Sporting Kansas City's 1-0 victory over USL side Saint Louis FC in the fourth round of the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.
Biggest, indeed – the crowd of 19,298 was a modern-era record for a fourth-round match and the biggest Open Cup attendance ever at Sporting Park – beating even their previous mark of 18,863 from their 2012 Open Cup final victory over the Seattle Sounders.
“It was cool to see,” Myers said. “It being an Open Cup game, and being my first game back, it felt like a normal MLS game – a playoff game.”
The veteran right back rose to the occasion in his first action since rupturing his right Achilles tendon in a league match in May 2014, manager Peter Vermes said in his post-match news conference.
“He was great,” Vermes said. “He was better than expected with his conditioning. He probably could have easily went another 10 to 15 minutes more. I really only wanted to play him to half, but he said he could go another 10 to 15 minutes easily. I pulled him off at the end, but I’m glad he got through it and he played very well. It was a good day for him.
“He has been through a lot of work for a year now trying to get back on the field. He looked like his old self and that was good to see.”
The next step for Myers will be getting 90-minutes fit – and he doesn't expect that to take too long.
“I felt good tonight,” he said. “I didn't cramp up, which is a solid thing. I think I probably could have gone until 75, 80, to be honest. I felt pretty good.”
Myers was off the pitch when the game-winner came on Graham Zusi's 70th-minute header, as Sporting – who had only one shot on goal in the first hour against the defensive-minded visitors – were finally rewarded for their patience.
“I think we expected this kind of match: a high percentage of possession for the whole game, for a team to come in and play defensively,” said Zusi, who had a header cleared off the line in first-half stoppage time. “We didn't let it frustrate us, and kept pushing, and didn't go away from our game plan – and eventually, we got one.”
The atmosphere – with a vocal contingent of St. Louligans on hand to ratchet things up one more notch – impressed both sides in the nascent I-70 rivalry.
“It speaks a lot to soccer around this area,” Sporting center back and captain Matt Besler said. “It was a lot of fun. As a player, those are the type of games that you want to be involved in. We knew the significance of the game going into it, but we realized it even more during warm-ups when we saw their fans walk in to their section. Then we saw our fans fill up the Cauldron, and they were going back and forth.
“I think it was really just a fun night for a soccer fan, so hopefully this is just the start of a rivalry.”
That's the hope, too, of Saint Louis coach Dale Schilly – who is one of Sporting's fans when he's not trying to pull off an upset in Open Cup play.
“You can’t help but notice it when you walk out of the tunnel and onto the field and you have the Cauldron chanting,” Schilly said in his post-match news conference. “Yes, I’ve been in the Cauldron and been chanting before. I’ve come up here for a number of games and supported the team. So I’ve been in that and I knew it was like that.
“To really hear it at the end of the game, when I really tuned into the Louligans, hearing them still supporting the team still at that moment, and hearing the Cauldron guys going at it – for me it just rings of hope that maybe we can continue to meet each other in these sort of matches so that maybe a rivalry can happen.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
