‘That guy’s a (bleeping) freak.’ Sporting KC rides a playoff cheat code into St. Louis

The mob put Tim Melia at its center, a group of grown men jumping up and down around him, celebrating that they get to play a kid’s game for at least a couple of more weeks.

Sporting Kansas City advanced to the Western Conference quarterfinals after a penalty shootout win followed a scoreless draw against San Jose, and now a best-of-three series date with St. Louis awaits because the goalkeeper saved more than a penalty kick. He saved their season.

And every last person inside Children’s Mercy Park knew he would.

But none seem to know how.

There was some beautiful irony in that post-game celebration, along with the one that would spill into Sporting’s locker room post-game late Wednesday: Only one player in the room knew exactly why their season is marching on.

Sure, they understand the basics. Melia has developed into perhaps the very best penalty shot stopper his league has ever seen. He opened Wednesday’s shootout with a save before the next San Jose attempt sailed over the bar, which is somehow also probably his doing, and the game was all but officially finished. It felt finished before any San Jose player stepped to the dot.

The MLS playoffs are here, which means shootouts could be here, and Sporting Kansas City has a unique-to-one-team cheat code applicable for the biggest stage of the season. This is Wade Davis in the ninth inning in 2015, Patrick Mahomes on third down or the Brotherly Shove on fourth-and-inches.

With a key exception.

We know, all of us, why those developed into significant edges. This weapon itself is also not a secret, but the genesis of it is.

“He’s the best I’ve ever been around, player and coach, in regards to penalty kicks,” Sporting coach Peter Vermes said. “He’s absolutely incredible. He just is. He’s incredible.”

Right. But how does he do it?

“I think I figured it out,” Vermes told me.

You think?

“I’m pretty sure I know.”

But you can’t be 100 percent?

“He’s never told me.”

Or anyone.

Melia is perfect in shootouts in his career — 7-0 overall, with five of those in Kansas City — and he’s left his own manager to take educated guesses at how he does it. No keeper in MLS history has a perfect record in that many tries. He has saved more than half of PK attempts him in the regular season.

San Jose must be particularly sick of seeing him — the Earthquakes have converted only three of their last 10 attempts against him.

This an art that only one goalkeeper in the league has crafted, leaving everyone else staring at the museum painting for hours, trying to figure out what they’re looking at.

After the match, I strolled through Sporting’s locker room, talking to a collection of players who see Melia defend penalties in practice every day. Certainly someone has cracked the code, right?

I didn’t open by asking them to unveil the details. Just a simple question: Do you know his trick?

“No one knows,” captain Johnny Russell said. “I ask him all the time.

“I don’t understand it. I genuinely don’t.”

It’s probably obvious to say there must be some sort of tell Melia spots in opposing shooters, right? We’re not witnessing the world’s all-time luckiest pick-a-side guesser. Melia will acknowledge that there is a considerable amount of time studying the craft with goalkeeper coach Alec Dufty.

But that’s the extent of what he’ll acknowledge. After the match, as he walked across the field, I twice asked him about how the match finished. You know, with the series of penalties. He changed the subject each time, pointing out that Sporting doesn’t win without the performance of its back line. He’s not wrong. The defense produced what might have been its best night of the entire season, and they picked a pretty good time for it.

But penalties are remembered for stops more than the conversions, and thus Sporting really doesn’t win if not for Melia in the 4-2 shootout.

So I tried to break the combination once more, returning to Melia in the locker room, because, frankly, he has long been one to provide the truth, good, bad or otherwise. And this time he did ultimately provide it:

“I don’t want to talk about PKs,” he said, and then offered an apology.

Fair enough. But let’s be clear: Melia is not concerned about some sort of jinx. He’s choosing not to risk unsealing classified information.

In the new MLS playoff format, gone is aggregate scoring, replaced with a best-of-three series against St. Louis in the next round that will call for penalty kicks after each game, if necessary.

And if truly necessary, everyone in the building will know which side — which player — has an edge.

It became abundantly clear Wednesday that includes the opposition. This is more than a narrative. Melia has become so good at stopping penalties in his career that, as veteran Graham Zusi put it, “it’s absolutely a psychological thing too.”

They think Melia has them figured out — that he knows exactly where the ball is going. So you either have to be perfect with the shot, change your routine or even change your mind at the last moment when you see him budge. When Jackson Yueill skied a shot over the bar after Melia stoned Cristian Espinoza on San Jose’s first attempt? You bet that’s part of the calculus.

This guy knows where I’m going.

Think of how maddening it would be to not understand why. Or how.

And believe me, Sporting players have tried in practice. After my last attempt to talk with Melia about it, I walked across the room and talked with Russell. He was already having a conversation with another player about it.

“All I know,” Russell said, nodding in the direction of Melia’s chair, “is that guy’s a (bleeping) freak.”

Once more for emphasis.

“A (bleeping) freak.”

That secret, at least, is out.