For many years, the Achilles’ heel of Sporting Kansas City has been well known. Peter Vermes manages a well-drilled team that is disciplined, industrious and defensively stifling.
But Sporting KC have consistently lacked a true number nine, a leading centre-forward who can provide both goals and a focal point for an attack that requires a back-to-goal striker to hold up play, stretch the channels, and create space and opportunities for those around him.
Those same problems existed this season. SKC would end the regular season atop the Western Conference. But in the playoffs, they fell to the Portland Timbers, in large part because they were unable to finish the slew of chances they created, especially in the second leg at Children’s Mercy Park.