Rouse: Wizards seek playoffs
IT TOOK AWHILE, BUT WIZARDS ARE MAKING SERIOUS RUN FOR PLAYOFFS. By Charles Rouse
KANSAS CITY, Kan – Call them a second-half club – as in second half of the season. No matter. The Kansas City Wizards are playing as if they can’t lose – to anybody, anywhere. The Wizards’ latest triumph came Saturday night in la-la land as they shutout the league-leading Los Angeles Galaxy 2-0, featuring USA World Cup soccer star Landon Donovan, for the second time this season. It was Kansas City’s and goalkeeper Jimmy Nielsen’s eighth shutout of the season.
The win over the high-scoring Galaxy was Kansas City’s fourth in its last seven matches, dating back to a 1-0 road victory over the Eastern Conference-leading Columbus Crew. The Wizards lone loss during that time was a 1-0 defeat in mid-August at CommunityAmerica Ballpark against the San Jose Earthquakes. Among KC’s four wins was the momentous victory in the “friendly” match with global soccer giant Manchester United last month at Arrowhead Stadium.
Where has this team been, already? Six weeks ago, the Wizards’ record stood at 3-8-3, and looked as if the second half of the 2010 Major League Soccer season was destined to produce more of the same. Now our hometown professional soccer heroes find themselves a single point back of Toronto FC for third place in the Eastern Conference and just three points out of the eighth and final qualifying spot for the playoffs, currently occupied by the Earthquakes of the Western Conference.
What a turnaround. And with nine games remaining for the Wizards in the regular season (four against teams likely to clinch playoff berths and five with teams that currently have a worse record than the Wizards), it may be a bit of a stretch, but the playoffs are not out of the question for Kansas City. Without this latest winning spurt, however, the playoff prospects for the Wizards would have been virtually nil.
The Wizards are 7-0 this season, with two ties, in games in which they score the first goal. Kansas City has scored first in six of its last seven games. “We see what we can do when everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s working hard for each other,” said Wizards captain Davy Arnaud, who scored Kansas City’s first goal Saturday night against Los Angeles. “I thought (the match against the Galaxy) was the best example of it that we’ve had all year. It’s what we need every week,” he said.
It was a memorable night for the veteran Kansas City midfielder for more than one reason. Arnaud’s first-half goal against the Galaxy was the 40th of his career, moving him into third-place all-time on the Wizards’ scoring chart. He also surpassed 17,000 minutes played in his MLS career. Commenting on the Wizards’ recent performance, head coach Peter Vermes said, “It is all just coming to a head that the players have a sense that they have the ability to do certain things on the field in regards to whether we are down or tied up.”
The Wizards are on the road again this week, in Philadelphia Saturday afternoon to take on the expansion Union. Kansas City defeated the Union, who are 5-11-5 in their initial MLS season, at CommunityAmerica Ballpark in June. The team announced earlier this week that the Sept. 11 home date with the Houston Dynamo will be moved to Wednesday, Sept 22 because of an independent Northern League playoff series involving the Kansas City T-Bones. The Wizards and T-Bones both play their home games at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
Between Sept. 19 and Sept 25, Kansas City will play three matches in seven days. They go back to Los Angeles to meet Chivas USA on Sept. 19, before returning home for the rescheduled match with the Dynamo on Sept 22 and a Saturday night home date with FC Dallas three days afterwards.
Charles (Chip) F. Rouse III, the Kansas City Sports Examiner, has spent over 40 years working in and with the news media. Rouse, a journalist by training and a graduate of the University of Kansas, has served in the role of newspaper reporter; in addition to radio and television. To view Chip’s sports articles, including this one, on Examiner.com, please click here. He welcomes your comments at crouse@massappealnews.com.