Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Sporting Kansas City supporters brought the noise on Saturday. They also tried to send a message.
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here,” read the tifo raised by members of the KC Cauldron in the north end of Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night. And yet, the next 90 minutes hardly felt hopeless.
St. Louis CITY SC’s Tomas Totland made sure of it.
In spite of the rude welcome, the visitors never lost hope during their first trip to Kansas this season. With CITY trailing SKC in the final moments, Totland pushed his lungs to the limit with a dashing run in stoppage time that led to a must-have goal on the scoreboard and a crucial point in the standings. After the ball pinged from Célio Pompeu to João Klauss to Aziel Jackson, Totland calmly caught the ball in stride, flipped it beyond the reach of a sliding Daniel Salloi, and cleanly beat Kansas City keeper Tim Melia to force the 3-3 draw.
“We showed again that we don’t give up,” Totland said.
Totland’s strike marked CITY’s third goal of the season scored during second-half stoppage time, matching the club’s total from the 2023 season.
“They're a good team,” Totland said. “But we just came out and played our brand of soccer. When you're down and you need that goal, you have extra energy. The ball came and my legs felt right.”
Totland, of course, had an expectation that the ball would find its way to the right as he crashed forward. One of CITY head coach Bradley Carnell's defining principles is to have his players look for weak side relief when there's an overload. Totland’s commitment to simply being in the right space exploited SKC’s tired legs as the home team attempted to recover.
It's fitting that CITY's strongest individual performances came from players locked into the battle through all 90 minutes. Carnell made four changes throughout the match, including a final adjustment that sent Chris Durkin into the backline and pushed Totland high. Carnell also inserted Nikolas Dyhr onto the left wing.
“We pushed [Chris Durkin] in as a center back to get the wingers with [Nikolas Dyhr] and [Totland] as wingers to flood the box with [Nökkvi Thórisson] and [Pompeu] and Klauss who did amazing things,” Carnell said. “We just tried to put a bit of pressure on the opponent's backline and credit to the boys for not giving up. It's something that this team continues to show—a never-say-die attitude.”
The mentality within the club seems strong despite its struggles to replicate last season’s dominant start. CITY has earned a point from a losing position in five of their nine MLS matches this season, often exploiting the lapses that come late in matches when tired legs can’t keep up with tired minds.
For Totland, his finish was simple—even if the work to get there was anything but easy. Confidence, he says, is the key to finding the net when needed.
After last weekend, the new addition to the lineup is helping CITY find its self-belief one key play at a time.
