Johnny Russell’s 2nd-half goal atones for 1st-half own-goal as Sporting KC plays to tie

Sporting Kansas City came from behind on the road to earn a 1-1 draw against Minnesota United on Wednesday night in St. Paul, Minn.

Johnny Russell’s second-half goal salvaged the point for Sporting KC after a first-half own-goal was credited to stand-in Kansas City goalkeeper John Pulskamp.

Sporting KC (5-11-5) started in quite a different look. Daniel Salloi played striker and Marinos Tzionis and Cam Duke flanked him on the left and right, respectively — a makeshift front three, but one that nonetheless created multuple chances.

Overall, Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes was happy with his team’s performance.

“Just a tremendous performance, both sides of the ball,” he said “We created probably four high-quality goal-scoring chances in the first half. We were very dynamic in the final third.”

But a self-inflicted wound put Sporting in a hole late in the first half: In the 43rd minute, KC’s Andreu Fontas failed to clear Kemar Lawrence’s attempt to keep the ball in, duffing it off the outstretched hands of Pulskamp and into the net.

“That goal we concede is a tough one to swallow because we were playing very, very well at that point,” Vermes said.

After that, Sporting desperately needed something big from Russell, who had been in a scoring slump — entering Wednesday’s game, he hadn’t scored from the run of play since late May.

The veteran captain stepped up in the 63rd minute, making a give-and-go with Kayden Pierre and dribbling past multiple Minnesota defenders before curling a shot into the bottom-right corner.

Pulskamp, who started because of a shoulder injury to Tim Melia, made three crucial stops late in the game.

“He was tremendous the whole game,” Vermes said of Pulskamp’s performance. “The second half, he was a monster. He never lost himself emotionally in the game.”

On one of those late saves, Pulskamp didn’t know the offside flag was up because of how quickly the play developed. The other two came in quick succession — after a diving stop kept a header from going in, and via a reactionary save of an oddly deflected corner kick.

After the match, Vermes hailed the response of his team, crediting his players for “not losing themselves.”

Russell agreed, noting Sporting’s response in back-to-back games after falling behind at first. After not earning a point in the first nine games in which they’d conceded first, Sporting’s claimed four in the past two.

“At the start of the season, we weren’t coming back from that,” Russell said. “For whatever reason, when we were down a goal, confidence dropped — we stopped playing the way that we can.”

The second half of Sporting KC’s 7-2 loss against Portland is one that immediately comes to mind, as the team compounded its mistakes time after time despite playing well for the first 50 minutes of the match. The response then was a passionate rant from the captain, wherein Russell blasted the team for collapsing mentally.

“None of us ever wanted to feel like that again,” Russell said. “We had a little taste of coming back at the weekend. It was such a good feeling to get a win on the road, and especially coming back, as well.”

While they don’t want to make doing so a habit, knowing they can regroup builds confidence.

“We’ve shown that we still have that character,” Russell said. “We’re down, but we’re nowhere near out yet.”

Sporting KC heads out on the road again this weekend, taking on Real Salt Lake Sunday at 8:30 pm Central Time.