Opta Stat of the Day: And oh yeah, Sporting are still dominant in the air

On Tuesday, I noted that Uri Rosell has done superb work cleaning up messes in the central midfield for Sporting KC which, in all honesty, was one of the big questions for that team headed into the season.

Thanks to his work (and Paolo Nagamura, and Benny Feilhaber, and Peterson Joseph, and even a little bit of Lawrence Olum), attacking KC up the gut is still a no-go. But attacking from out wide doesn't work so great, either:


<strong>Team</strong>	<strong>Headed Clearances</strong>
Sporting Kansas City	268
San Jose Earthquakes	221
Vancouver Whitecaps	213
New York Red Bulls	208
Portland Timbers	201
Houston Dynamo	198
FC Dallas	197
Colorado Rapids	189
Real Salt Lake	189
D.C. United	182
Montreal Impact	179
New England Revolution	175
Chivas USA	175
Columbus Crew	167
LA Galaxy	162
Toronto FC	162
Seattle Sounders FC	148
Philadelphia Union	141
Chicago Fire	118

Obviously, this doesn't mean SKC are unbeatable. They can be had, especially in transition, and their attack still isn't clicking the way Peter Vermes must have hoped it would heading into the season.

But they still get the basics right. And that's why they'll be at or near the top of the Eastern Conference through the rest of the season.

Matthew Doyle -

@MattDoyle76