Sporting KC blasted by Toluca FC, bounced from Leagues Cup in knockout round

Sporting Kansas City was bounced from the 2023 Leagues Cup with an 4-1 knockout-stage round of 32 loss to Toluca FC on Friday night at Children’s Mercy Park.

Sporting manager Peter Vermes subbed out captain Johnny Russell and midfielder Gadi Kinda in the 71st minute, illustrating that the match was over — well — before it was actually over.

“I think that at the end of the day, they were better in the important moments of the game,” Vermes said. “That’s the fair statement.”

Forward Willy Agada scored SKC’s lone goal in the 88th minute with a right-footed shot to the bottom-left corner of the net.

Toluca FC outshot Sporting 15-12 despite SKC winning the possession 53.4%-46.6% over its Liga MX foe.

SKC was still without star striker Alan Pulido, who was suspended for two Leagues Cup matches for a headbutting red card against FC Cincinnati on July 23. He also missed Monday’s match against his former team, Chivas Guadalajara.

“I thought that (Erik) Thommy did a really good job last game, but I think you’re asking him to do a yeoman’s job,” Vermes said of Pulido’s replacement.

Toluca took a 1-0 lead in the 29th minute on an unfortunate break for Sporting KC. Defender Dany Rosero dove toward the goal to block a wayward Toluca shot, but he accidentally knocked it in.

Then, in the 32nd minute, Pedro Raul sneaked behind Sporting goalkeeper John Pulskamp, controlled a pass from Robert Morales and drilled a right-footer into the bottom-left corner, giving Toluca a 2-0 lead.

The bad breaks continued in the second minute of stoppage time. Sporting midfielder Felipe Gutierrez corralled his own miss off the crossbar and threaded a shot into the top-right corner, but forward Khiry Shelton was caught offside upon review — disallowing the goal. Shelton was replaced by Daniel Salloi to start the second half.

“The second goal, I’ve watched it from a different angle,” Vermes said. “I look at it, as I see, I would say he’s offsides. If they’re calling Khiry offsides, I’m thinking that their second goal was probably offsides as well.”

Toluca went up 3-0 in the 54th minute on a Morales right-footer, with Raul getting the assist.

Toluca added its fourth score in the 63rd minute as Juan Dominguez took Valber Huerta’s pass, crossed up Pulskamp and sped by him, rolling the ball into the goal.

Pulskamp did tally five saves, though, and Vermes blamed the overall defensive alignment for the goals, rather than his keeper.

“I would say that there was some fatigue, mental errors, but fatigue makes cowards of us all,” Vermes said. “And I think that we got a little bit — we got tired, and we just didn’t want to make the runs, and that can’t happen.”

One bright spot was the 71st-minute entrance of Agada, who hadn’t played since April 15. He recently returned to full training after surgery to repair a stress fracture in his left tibia, the club said.

Agada nearly put SKC on the board with a left-footed shot from the center of the box in the 78th minute. His initial attempt hit the crossbar and his rebound header sailed over the goal. But he got his chance again in the 88th minute and made the most of it.

“It was good to get him minutes, for sure, prior to us restarting the season as well,” Vermes said. “That was the whole idea. Try to get him in some of these games at the end before we get back to the regular season. The good thing is he’s healthy, he has no problems. So he’s back and I think for him, probably, scoring the goal is a good confidence builder.”

Sporting next returns to MLS regular-season play with a 7:30 p.m. home contest on Aug. 26 against the San Jose Earthquakes.

Vermes knows exactly how he wants to use the three weeks before his team hits the pitch again.

“We have a couple of weeks of training now that we can really overload the guys on the training aspect and get ready for our first game that we return back to the regular season,” Vermes said. “That’s going to be an important aspect (that) — one — those guys are more fit, and then the other is we have availability of the majority of our players. Because we’re going to need all them at the final push.”