The ball splashed the side netting, igniting an eruption from 72,000-plus, many of whom, let’s be real, packed inside GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium to see someone else.
That someone else, Lionel Messi, the greatest soccer player of at least his generation, stood about 100 yards away but took a peek up at the crowd as it reacted. His moments would come later in Inter Miami’s 3-2 win against Sporting Kansas City on Saturday.
But for now, his head swirled after Sporting’s opening strike, and if you saw it, you couldn’t help but wonder what a man who has played in the biggest matches the world has to offer might have been thinking.
Surely he wasn’t stuck in amazement, right?
In the club level at Arrowhead Stadium, you bet Sean Bowers was. A member of the first team in the franchise’s history in 1996 — back when the franchise went by a different name, the Wiz — Bowers sat with his wife and his 25-year-old daughter, Gracie.
Gracie had seen only videos of her father playing with the Wiz (and then Wizards) at this same venue. Too young to remember the live version. But at some point she turned to her father and stated the obvious, he said.
“Dad,” she said. “it didn’t look like this when you played here.”
You don’t need me to tell you what unfolded Saturday is unlike anything in Kansas City’s soccer history. But maybe a reminder of how it’s unique?
This was not an exhibition match. It was not Manchester United invited to town, a team from another league asked to help boost the local soccer interest and sell some tickets.
This match counted. It was No. 8 of 34 in the MLS regular season. The league’s own growth is responsible. Messi chose this league. He chose to play in Kansas City three days after he played 90-plus minutes in Mexico.
The fact that some will be annoyed by my next paragraph will only help prove its point:
It was not a good result for Sporting KC on Saturday, but it was a great night for Sporting KC. There will be plenty of pushback on that point from those most devoted to the club. That’s a good thing.
But a bevy of new fans, or at least new-ish, left Truman Sports Complex knowing there were two teams worth watching.
They already knew there was one.
Or at least one player.
It was Sporting KC midfielder Erik Thommy, not Messi, who had the goal of the night, and Messi himself had a beaut. The Argentine midfielder, who led his home country to the 2022 World Cup title, had moments of utter brilliance. His first-half assist might’ve been better than his game-winning goal, and he tucked a 25-yard strike just under the bar for that goal.
What else could a one-off crowd have sought? For a moment in the first half, it seemed like half of those who filled the stadium had cell phones in their hands, lining up the recording of a free kick along with Messi.
They were chanting his name in the game’s initial 90 seconds. Heck, they erupted when he scored goals in warmups — even though there wasn’t even a goalie there to defend them. The chants returned after the deceptive assist, perhaps appropriately on the same area of the field in which Patrick Mahomes once threw a pass toward a receiver he didn’t even see.
It was a constant buzz from start to finish. At one point, Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes rushed over to offer instructions to his outside back, Tim Leibold, as Leibold prepared a throw-in — because it was the only opportunity for Vermes’ booming voice to be heard by one of his players.
He’d laugh about that later. Why? A few days earlier, Sporting KC had conducted a walk-through inside Arrowhead Stadium, and Vermes and assistant coach Kerry Zavagnin marveled at what awaited. They played for the Wizards in 2000. Clinched an MLS Cup berth inside the same venue.
Only a shade more than 8,000 fans had attended that match.
They knew the contrast. They lived it.
“It was terrible, because I used to drop F-bombs all the time,” Vermes said, “and kids in the stadium could hear you.”
That’s the perspective of a championship team in this same league. Lamar Hunt, then the owner, might’ve had a vision this day was coming, but it seemed just about impossible for anyone on the field to actually believe. Hunt had spoken to the team a day before it won its first MLS Cup.
“He wanted us to know this was incredibly important to his family, but especially to him,” Vermes recalled. “He said, ‘People don’t realize this, but this is what I want to be successful. I want this team to win.’
“That’s a powerful speech.”
Hunt’s vision was a slow burn.
The players comprising a Wizards roster were ambassadors as much as they were players. They used to go to children’s birthday parties to promote the game.
“Our season-ticket holder party was at PowerPlay on Shawnee Mission Parkway,” Zavagnin said. “It was like Chuck E. Cheese. That’s real. That happened.”
On Saturday, before the game even started, Zavagnin took a moment to ensure he acknowledged the atmosphere.
“Pretty (bleeping) amazing,” he said.
After winning that MLS Cup in 2000, the Wizards returned to Arrowhead Stadium, their home venue, the one that just packed 72,000 people in the stands for a soccer game, and hoped to celebrate their championship.
Zavagnin had an estimate for the crowd:
50.
Vermes swears he doesn’t even remember it.
One of the Wizards players that year, Miklos Molnar, was from Denmark and had a bit of a following from a local furniture store, Danish Inspirations.
“We might’ve had 50 people there, and 45 of them were Danish. They were all his buddies,” Zavagnin quipped.
“I really don’t think I was there,” Vermes said. “Maybe I had a birthday party I had to go to.”
That’s the city that just squeezed inside the home of the Super Bowl champions and made it a neat fit.
They were there for Messi, no doubt. Once in a lifetime and all that. But their partiality became clear — it was a Sporting KC crowd.
This isn’t Sporting’s home stadium any longer. That fact is as responsible for their growth as any other, coupled with an ownership handoff.
But two truths were underscored Saturday.
It’s their city as much as it has ever been.
With plenty of room to grow.
