Saturday Stats

It would be hard not to notice, but SportingKC.com is cranking up the coverage this season in the days after matches. As always, there is the standard game recap and quote sheet, but there's also Andrew Wiebe's written breakdown, Josh Whisenhunt and Dave Borchardt's audio analysis, Jake Yadrich's video highlights and reactions along with footage from postgame activities, and feature stories about the debuts of Sapong and Bravo. Truly a variety of voices with different takes on the game.

And now for the final piece of the puzzle, a look inside the official ProZone post match report provided to the technical staff. This is the statistical stuff that goes well beyond the basic box score and can really give a feel for some of the finer nuances of any given game. Here's a sampling from the season opener against Chivas USA:

• Sporting KC completed 176 of 230 passes with a success rate of 76.5%.
• Captain Davy Arnaud attempted the most with 26, but fellow midfielder Stephane Auvray completed the most with 20 after coming on in place of Craig Rocastle.
• Who completed the highest percentage of their passes? Rookie C.J. Sapong, successfully sending 18 of 19 passes for an impressive 94.7% success rate. 
• Sapong also won the most headers, beating out centerbacks Matt Besler (12) and Julio Cesar (13) with 17 successful aerial battles to his name.
• Who received the most passes? Omar Bravo and Kei Kamara each had 38.
• Best passing relationship? Omar Bravo and Milos Stojcev who combined nine times between each other.
• On the defensive end, Stephane Auvray made the most tackles with six, while Besler led all players with 22 interceptions.