Recap: D.C. United trounces Sporting Kansas City 2-1 in first home win of 2025
Featured image courtesy of Hannah Wagner, D.C. United.
D.C. United secured their first win of the 2025 Major League Soccer season by defeating Sporting Kansas City, 2-1 in an exhilarating home match at Buzzard Point.
Sporting Kansas City’s woes continued as they suffered yet another defeat, extending their 2025 losing streak. Under the guidance of head coach Troy Lesesne, D.C. United pushed Sporting Kansas City into a quicker tempo, disrupting the visitors’ chances at building momentum and forcing them to make mistakes.
Sporting Kansas City and D.C. United last faced off in late 2022, with Sporting securing a dominant 3-0 victory at Children’s Mercy Park. However, Sporting’s last visit to Audi Field dates all the way back to May 2019, when D.C. United edged out a narrow 1-0 victory courtesy of a late stunner by Paul Arriola.
As with previous matches this 2025 season, the Black-and-Red sought early opportunities to take the lead. In the 5’, Gabriel Pirani took a shot from the center of the box but was denied by John Pulskamp.
For their part, Kansas City tried to leverage their physicality to keep the Black-and-Red in check. Center back Dany Rosero took down Pirani, earning himself a yellow in the 21’. Rosero’s early booking was detrimental to Sporting, as they were counting on him to challenge D.C.’s danger man, Christian Benteke, in the box.
Benteke would find an opportunity in the 24’, but contact from Sporting’s defense would cause him to miss his target. Kansas City continued to toe the line to see how far they could go in keeping the Belgian striker in check. Official Rosario Mendoza was liberal with his bookings, refusing to give either side leeway.
Sporting’s Pulskamp would continue to make errors, allowing dangerous action in the 6-yard box. While he was saved from catastrophe by luck in the first half, he wouldn’t be so lucky as the match wore on.
Despite the chippy first half, the match remained scoreless.
Sporting captain Erik Thommy finally opened the scoring in the 53′. With an assist from Jake Davis, Thommy maneuvered skillfully to overcome Joon-Hong Kim and put Kansas City in the lead.
In a dramatic turn of events, Christian Benteke would come up big to find the equalizer for D.C. United. Just seven minutes after Thommy’s goal, the Black-and-Red’s captain would step up to the spot to fling one past Pulskamp, bringing the match level in the 60’.
Hosei Kijima came through with an absolute stunner for D.C. United in the 68’. Assisted by fellow newcomer João Peglow, Kijima tipped in a header to shock Pulskamp and give the Black-and-Red the lead. Kijima shared the difficulty of the play he scored from, saying, “Running behind has to come when the ball goes into a negative direction and then the line steps up. It’s very difficult to track, and I do it a lot, and maybe, I’ve done it in my career, maybe about 50 times, and I think three goals came out of it. So, yeah, I’m looking to do it more times going forward.”
Sporting would try to find an equalizer, but to no end. Even with six minutes of added time, the Black-and-Red held onto their lead to earn all three points.
Head coach Troy Lesesne had a message for supporters after tonight’s win. He said, “I just love the energy that they brought tonight. And not only our supporters section, but the entire stadium. I know these first two weeks, just weather-wise, it wasn’t easy to come out, but we want to pack out Audi Field. We really want to create an atmosphere here. And I think what I’m talking about is our performances in the first three weeks and now seeing some of these individuals that are new and things starting to come together a little bit more. We want to entertain our fans. We want to be fun to watch. We want to bring energy like they bring energy for us, so we’re really appreciative, and the best way to pay them back is by getting three points at the end of the day.”
D.C. United remains at home to face CF Montréal on Saturday, March 15.
Watch the highlights from D.C. United vs. Sporting Kansas City
Box Score
MLS Regular Season – Game 3
D.C. United: 2 Benteke 60’, Kijima 68’
Sporting Kansas City: 1 Thommy 53’
Lineups
D.C. United: Joon-Hong Kim, Lucas Bartlett, Kye Rowles, Aaron Herrera, David Schnegg, Boris Enow (Matti Peltola 70’), João Peglow (Brandon Servania 81’), Jared Stroud (Jacob Murrell 70’), Gabriel Pirani (Lukas MacNaughton 81’), Hosei Kijima, Christian Benteke (Dominique Badji 81’)
Sporting Kansas City: John Pulskamp, Dany Rosero (Jansen Miller 46’), Jake Davis, Logan Ndenbe, Joaquin Fernandez, Nemanja Radoja, Manu Garcia, Zorhan Bassong, Erik Thommy (Daniel Salloi 88’), Shapi Suleymanov (William Agada 77’), Dejan Joveljić
Misconduct Summary
D.C. United: Enow 31’, Peglow 38’, Benteke 76’, Kim 90’, MacNaughton 90’+8’
Sporting Kansas City: Rosero 21’, Fernández 40’, Miller 52’, Pulskamp 82’
Excellent write up. We must have had a significant edge in expected goals. Anyone knows the data?
This square is clearly faster and quicker than last year’s. Kijima is a real find as is Peglow.
My recollection of the stats screen post-game was about 3 (DC) to 0.75 (KC) or so.
It’s a good Sunday–wins by both the Spirit and United. Life is good!
Old Glory won as well.
I watched that after Scotland vs wales. Much fun!
So, others have posted similar thoughts in the summary above or in the match thread, but at the risk of being redundant:
I agree with the general sentiment about Kijima, who to my eye has already clearly demonstrated himself to be a long-term starter. I don’t recall offhand what his contract is, but I would negotiate an extension/raise pronto, if possible. All-action, high work rate, quick-thinking #8s do not grow on trees.Peglow showed well, with the requisite pace for a flank role and good ideas to contribute. Happy to see what he can do as he adjusts to the league.Rowles would be a lot more appealing if he stopped the trend he is establishing of choosing, at least once per half, to advance with the ball into space far enough that the space runs out with no plan for where he’s going to pass it, then losing the ball and not having enough recovery speed to help prevent a good chance the other way.More like this, please, Mr. Schnegg.Unfortunately for Ally Mackay, to the degree that Kijima has been a successful find, Enow has equally (IMO) demonstrated that he is a flat failure. I do not see how a player can overcome that much of a deficit in positioning, situational awareness, decisions, and consistency of technique. This was a horrible outing where the problems and limitations we were already seeing last season all came out to show at the same time, and frankly I’d be hesitant to play him at all (given a choice) until massive improvements are evident in training.I was already mostly done with Pirani after last season, but was happy to see if he could improve with a full offseason to work and grow. Didn’t happen, and it ain’t gonna. He isn’t fast enough to succeed on the flanks, isn’t strong enough to work through congestion or tight marking, is generally a quarter-second slower than he needs to be with his decisions, and still hasn’t fully integrated in positioning and off-the-ball movement; so he can’t fulfill the role as a #10, and also won’t be able to find success in a different role (having no clear skill or talent to hang his hat on other than vision). Sometimes he’ll have good moments, but that’s all it will ever be. :(Overall the team looked much, much better than in the home opener, with considerable improvements in coordination and spacing. Unfortunately, the problems at #10 and #6 could well undermine any other progress. Maybe Leal can get fully healthy and round into his old form; maybe Peltola can reverse the regression he seems to have experienced since coming here. Maybe. But if not… it’s good that we’re getting points out of the easiest opening slate of matches you’ll ever see, but I suspect better teams are going to eat us for lunch despite the various positives. It would be different, very different, if we had real depth; but ownership decided to be cheap, so our options will be limited.
Addendum: Last I checked, Russ Canouse is still a free agent. Just sayin’.
That post had bullets originally. Now it’s unreadable. 🙁
I haven’t looked around too hard, but I wonder if Canouse will hang it up. It’s completely insane that no team in the league thinks he’s worth even his former salary. Good, plain old DMs continue to be undervalued.
I heard from a reasonably reliable source that he was willing to take pay cut to stay with DC. If that is true, even just for locker room glue, I cannot fathom that he is not in the plans. Perhaps the issues is medical in nature, but……