Totland’s 92nd minute goal salvages a tie for City SC against Sporting Kansas City (2024)

KANSAS CITY, KANSAS — In the kind of game that’s good for a rivalry, St. Louis City SC and Sporting Kansas City went at it Saturday night. Each team had the lead, each team lost the lead. One team and its fans were upset with the way the other team was playing and the way the referee was calling the game.

And it had some late-game theatrics.

Tomas Totland scored two minutes into second-half stoppage time as City SC salvaged a 3-3 tie with Sporting Kansas City at Children’s Mercy Park. Totland made a run down the right side, leapt over a defender, kept going and got his first MLS goal.

The result extends City SC’s unbeaten streak to three games in the first tie in the short history of the rivalry.

Erik Thommy scored in the 77th minute in what looked like the game-winner, coming in alone on goalkeeper Roman Burki as City SC’s backline delayed for a moment expecting an offside call that didn’t come. Sporting Kansas City did have a player offside on the play, but he wasn’t involved in it as Thommy came charging from behind the play to get the ball on the run and put it past Burki.

City SC fell behind in the 17th minute on a counter by SKC after a turnover that ended with a give-and-go between Alan Pulido and Willy Agada, with Pulido beating Burki into the far side of the net. That goal was the first allowed by City SC in 197 minutes. It was Pulido’s 30th career goal, getting there in 69 games, the third quickest player to get there in MLS history, behind Preki and Dominic Dwyer.

City SC, like usual, had chances in Kansas City’s end that it couldn’t turn into anything. But when City SC started getting physical, good things started happening for them.

In the 31st minute, Chris Durkin put his shoulder into Kansas City’s Tim Leibold to win a ball in SKC’s end. He got the ball to Rasmus Alm, who crossed to Klauss in the box who one-timed it in to tie the game. Sporting players were irate that there wasn’t a foul on Durkin for his shoulder, but referee Allen Chapman was unimpressed.

City SC did it again three minutes into the seven minutes of first-half stoppage time. Klauss used his shoulder to send Agada flying, recovered the ball, stepped over a tackle attempt by Nemanja Radoja and passed to Celio Pompeu, who cut the ball inside and from just outside the top of the box drilled it in to give City SC the lead.

Sporting didn’t like that one either, but for the first time this season, City SC had scored twice in the first half.

SKC tied the game in the 65th minute. Klauss headed away a free kick in the City SC box, but Daniel Salloi caught up with it before it went over the end line. From an almost impossible angle, he lobbed the ball toward City SC’s goal, and Burki leapt to knock it away. But the ball continued going in its original direction and caught the inside of the far post and bounced in, as Hosei Kijima looked on helplessly from the other side of the post.

City SC coach Bradley Carnell used the same lineup as he did against Austin last week. It’s the second time this season he’s come back with the same lineup, and both times it was after games where he was very pleased with how the team played. The team was once again without Eduard Lowen, Njabulo Blom and Josh Yaro because of injuries and without Samuel Adeniran, who while healthy is not practicing with the team with Carnell dissatisfied with his work rate. For the second week in a row, City SC had only eight players on the bench, one less than teams can dress for games.

City SC is off next week, its first free weekend since the season began in February. City SC’s next game is May 4 in Houston and its next home game is May 11 against Chicago.

City2 drew 7,119 fans at CityPark on Friday night for its MLS Next Pro game. That’s the largest crowd in Next Pro this season, though about 2,500 off the Next Pro record of 9,626 set by City2 last season.