Sporting puts perfect mark on the line against Galaxy
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sporting Kansas City's 1-0 win over Chivas USA last weekend helped the club become the sixth team in MLS history to begin a season with four wins from four games.
And the club will try to maintain its perfect start on Saturday at Livestrong Sporting Park against the Los Angeles Galaxy, a team that is still struggling to find its rhythm.
Sporting's strong start makes for a nice story, but head coach Peter Vermes is focused more on accomplishments further down the road.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It's good to be 4-0, it's better than to be 0-4 that's for sure, but I think for us it's really just maintaining the idea that we have 30 games left," Vermes said. "I'm not making any disrespectful comments to you guys [in the media]. From your point of view, I understand it. But for us, there's so much more we have to accomplish as we move forward."
Sporting midfielder Graham Zusi set up the lone goal in Sunday's win, giving him a league-leading five assists for the season.
C.J. Sapong benefited from Zusi's assist against Chivas to notch his third goal of the campaign, and the striker feels that it is a good sign for his side to be able to grind out wins despite not playing its best.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It feels amazing, we probably haven't played to our fullest potential yet, but we're still grinding out those wins and that's a good sign," Sapong said. "So hopefully we'll just keep riding that and then by the middle of the season be playing our best soccer."
L.A. has been far from its best so far this season, losing two of its first three games, including a disappointing 3-1 loss at home to the New England Revolution last time out.
Saturday's match will mark the first away game of the season for the Galaxy, which has yielded seven goals in three games.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The loss of defender Omar Gonzalez to injury has clearly been felt, but Robbie Keane knows the issues in defense must be sorted out sooner rather than later.
"You still can't concede goals like [we did vs. New England] regardless if you have two weeks off or three days off or two days off," the striker said. "We can't be conceding goals the way we've conceded them. We have to rectify that because the goals we're conceding are similar to the first games."
Last season the Galaxy won only four of its first 11 games but still went on to win the Supporters' Shield, and defender Todd Dunivant is confident his side will get things right again this year.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Every year you start off and things are a little bit rusty," Dunivant said. "We didn't start off last year well, either. We need to correct those things and get better, and we will.