How Sporting KC players reacted to record Arrowhead soccer crowd & facing Lionel Messi

Six minutes into the game, Sporting Kansas City players answered definitively that they would not be daunted by an environment that was new to most of them.

A match that brought arguably the world’s greatest soccer talent, Lionel Messi, and the third largest crowd in MLS history (72,610) to Arrowhead Stadium, first tilted in the home team’s favor when Erik Thommy drove home the first of his two goals.

Sporting KC fell to Miami 3-2, thanks largely to Messi magic, but it was not because Sporting failed to meet the moment. Sporting was ready for this close-up.

“It’s a different feeling, but we scored early in the game, and I could feel confidence growing from that,” Thommy said.

Plenty in the crowd wore the Miami and Argentina jerseys of Messi, and his touches brought audible anticipation gasps. But the loudest cheers of the evening came from Sporting KC fans after Thommy’s goals.

“I’ve never played in front of that many people, and the support was real,” Sporting defender Jake Davis said. “I think sometimes Inter Miami goes some place, it’s mostly Messi fans, but our fans were loud and supportive. This was a special game.”

Sporting ultimately lost because Messi was Messi, a wonderful touch found Diego Gomez in stride breaking toward the goal to make it 1-1.

Early in the second half, Messi found himself in space and launched a rocket to make it 2-1. As Sporting manager Peter Vermes said, “I think we’d all agree, you don’t see that in MLS (except) when you play them.”

The quality of Miami’s stars was the difference. On this night, Sporting can live with that.

“He can create something out of thin air,” attacker Daniel Salloi said. “But the fire was with our team from the beginning. We had the fight, the courage. We made mistakes, but it wasn’t because we didn’t step up. It was a big stage, and we were ready for the moment.”