#TBT The Last Home Game I Missed

I'm going to be a little selfish tonight with my Throw Back Thursday. This weekend I'll be coaching my son's soccer team at 5:25pm on Sunday. What that means is that for the first time in almost 10 years I'll be missing a Sporting KC/KC Wizards home game. Come Sunday, it will be 3,600 days since I last missed a KC home game, a 3-0 win over the expansion (and now defunct) Chivas USA on June 25th, 2005.

KC scored all three of their goals in the second half, with Jimmy Conrad starting things off with a goal just after half time. Davy Arnaud doubled the lead in the 70th minute, before Sasha Victorine finished things off in the 85th minute in front of over 13,000 people, many of them Chivas Guadalajara fans who attended Chivas USA games in away cities over the team's first few years. Sadly  there don't appear to be any highlights online that I can find now to share about the game.

I missed that game because at the time I was on my honeymoon after getting married. Since then, my wife has put up with me being gone to Wizards and Sporting games whenever the team is at home, and many times when they were away and I traveled as well.

Over these almost 10 years, I've seen KC go from being on the selling block to seeing the team be one of the envies of the league. I've gone from seeing games played in front of announced crowds four to five thousand at Arrowhead to sold out crowds of over 20,000 at Sporting Park. I've seen the team struggle at the beginning of seasons (2011) and end of seasons (2005). I've seen greats like Preki and Jimmy Nielsen retire from the game, I've seen the beginning of great careers like Roger Espinoza, Matt Besler and Graham Zusi start in KC.

During this string of games I've seen 156 league games, and 186 games in all competitions since the middle of the 2005 season. KC has gone 71-39-46 at home over that time frame in league play, averaging 1.66 points per game, scoring 239 goals while conceding 173. In all competitions I've seen KC play 186 games going 88-46-52 scoring 293 goals and allowing 202.

Well here's to starting another 10 year run, and go Orange Smash on Sunday!

SAS Monday Edition

Well as I said earlier, that was gutting, but here are some stats from the game, including a couple nice marks being hit.

The loss was KC's first home playoff loss since 1997, the team had gone unbeaten for 12 games since their 3-0 home loss to Colorado.

CJ Sapong tied a team record for appearances in a season with 40. He tied Peter Vermes and Nick Garcia, both from the 2000 season, and Chris Brown in 2002.

Matt Besler finished with 3,457 minutes played, good for 8th all time for minutes in all competitions.

Davy Arnaud made his 273rd appearance in all competitions, tying him with Nick Garcia for second on the all time list.

It was also Arnaud's 15th playoff appearance, tying him with Diego Gutierrez and Mo Johnston for 7th place on that list.

Why It's Not Time to Panic, Yet

Five games without a win, only 4 points from the first 6 games. Not the type of start to the season that most fans were expecting heading into this season. Yes, most people thought that KC would struggle to pick up points at time, but I think the first half of the road trip is where fans saw the team picking up the majority of their points on this 10 game road trip.

Now with it half over, is it time to really be worried about this team this season? I've certainly thought that at times, especially in the heat of the moment after games. But this isn't the teams worst start in team history, that honor goes to the 1999 season. Of course that's not exactly a banner year for KC. The biggest thing to remember is that the 6 games so far have all been on the road. KC has never been a strong road team, in fact, only once has KC had a winning record after the first 6 road games of the season (2000). KC's 2011 season though is certainly one of the worse. KC is 1-4-1 through 6 games this season, the 5th worse in team history. In those other four seasons, only once (2002) did KC actually make the playoffs.

This season for KC, though, was always going to come down to KC's home form this season. Only twice in the team's history have they had a losing record at home. KC though will need a season similar to 2008 where KC only lost twice at home. It's still going to be a rough run for KC this season, and I'm not ready to totally back off the statement I made last year that we are unlikely to make the playoffs. But I'm not ready to panic and worry about this team quite yet.

Record at Home

The Wizards dropped two more points at home last Saturday night when they drew with the Galaxy 1-1. Compared to last year, the Wizards are struggling at home this year. The Wizards are 3-3-3 at home this season, earning them 1.33 points per game when they play at Community America through 9 games. Compared to the rest of the league at home, the Wizards are tied for the 3rd worst points per home game (PPHG) record so far this season, with Dallas and San Jose. Only New York (1 point per game at home) and surprisingly, Chicago (1.25 points per home game, but 5-1-4 on the road) have a worse record at home. Below is the current PPHG for each team along with their points and the number of home games they've played.

	points	Played	PPHG
New York	9	9	1
Chicago	10	8	1.25
SJ	12	9	1.33
Dallas	12	9	1.33
KC	12	9	1.33
LA	13	9	1.44
Toronto	18	11	1.64
RSL	18	9	2
Houston	18	9	2
Seattle	22	11	2
Colorado	18	9	2
New England	14	7	2
Chivas	19	9	2.11
DC	19	9	2.11
Columbus	22	10	2.2

Coach Onalfo has preached in weekly press conferences that he wants the team to average 2 points at home this season and 1 on the road. So far the team isn't even close to that total, and would actually need to win their remaining home games this season to average 2 points per home game this season.

The question is, why are the Wizards not doing as well this season as they did last year at CAB? There are probably a couple reasons. The first reason probably has to do with most teams now having played a game at CAB and knowing more of what to expect when they come to KC. The other issue has to do with how the team plays. From interviews that Thad and I have done with players they say that their style of play isn't really suited to the field dimensions at CAB.

My question in response to that, is why is the team not playing a style that is conducive to the place where you play most of your games? You would think that Onalfo would have created a game plan and style of play that would allow the Wizards to exploit their smaller field when playing teams that are used to a bigger field. The strategy worked well for the original San Jose Earthquakes when they played at Spartan Stadium. Sure, it's probably not as attractive a style of play, but it gets the results.

Wizards Home for 2007

The Wizards are currently homeless. The team can't play in Arrowhead next year due to the renovations that will be occurring there. Since that time, there has been plenty of debate over where the Wizards would play. Most of that debate seemed to focus on a high school facility in Johnson County. Sites that were consistently brought up by Wizards fans were Blue Valley Atheltic Complex, Olathe District Athletic Complex, Rockhurst High School, Park University, and College Boulevard Activity Center.

Recently an email went out to many Wizards season ticket holders and other fans. This email came with 6 possible locations to play at and fans were asked to rank them 1 through 6 on their order of preference. The six locations were

1. Ray-Pec HS
2. Rockhurst HS
3. BVDAC
4. CBAC
5. Park U.
6. Community America Ballpark

Ray-Pec had appearred as a late idea to the process as another possible location. My understand of the situation, though, was that 3 of these locations were not necessarily serious sites, but instead were put on the list as filler. One obvious filler site was Community America Ballpark because a field will not fit inside that facility. So the list was knocked down to 5. While Park University had hosted a few US Open Cup games, the lack of parking at the facility was a major draw back for many people, so that was likely another one that was filler. The third filler site was likely also a site that the Wizards used regularly for the US Open Cup, this would be BVDAC, Blue Valley Distric Athletic Complex. Here is was likely a lack of space to add seats on. The soccer side of the complex holds about 2200 people and there likely isn't enough space to add in another, at least, 6000 seats.

That leaves us with 3 possible locations, Ray-Pec, Rockhurst, and CBAC. While Ray-Pec had been the one getting the publicity about the Wizards coming there, among Wizards fans it apparently did not do so well, finishing near the bottom of the voting for the 6 locations. In an email that an employee of the school district posted on bigsoccer.com recently, the district said that the Wizards were going to be playing somewhere else next season.

So from the six above, we're now down to 2 locations, CBAC and Rockhurst. One deciding factor in location could be the playing surface, the players have apparently been pushing for a natural grass facility, which would rule out Rockhurst which has field turf. Then today in the star in an article about Ray-Pec's being out of the running for the Wizards, the superintendent was apparently told that the Wizards would be going to Olathe for their games. If this is to be believed that they are going to be playing in Olathe, and those 2 locations are the only 2 left, that means that the Wizards home for the next 2 season will be College Boulevard Activity Center. Take that for what you will, but it seems that next season the Wizards will be playing at the same location as the 2005 NAIA women's National Championships were held.

For those of you that don't know, here is a picture of the College Boulevard Complex



OTHER NEWS

Chris Henderson has come back to the Wizards. As was told to season ticket holders at the Christmas party, Chris Henderson has joined the Wizards staff as an assistant coach, bringing a fan favorite back to the team where he helped win the 2000 MLS Cup.