Sporting KC’s draw with LAFC involved rare indirect free kick for goalkeeper handball

Three matches into the 2024 season, Sporting KC is still searching for its first win.

The good news? There have been no losses.

Sporting KC and LAFC played to a 0-0 draw on Saturday night from BMO Stadium.

The scoreline won’t tell the full story. Sporting was dominant in possession, had twice as many corners as LAFC and took more shots in an impressive road showing in Los Angeles.

But the result: a scoreless draw.

“I think we could have taken two more points,” Sporting manager Peter Vermes said after the match. “But I don’t think that I would say we deserved it.”

The numbers — like those mentioned above — favored Sporting KC on the night. But the clearer chances went to LAFC.

That said, LAFC was wasteful with a few opportunities, and Tim Melia made six saves, none of them more crucial than his final save on LAFC’s star man Denis Bouanga.

Hugo Lloris — the former Tottenham star and French international goalkeeper — made six saves of his own, and Johnny Russell had a patented curling effort with his left foot clang off the post.

“We were very good tonight, don’t get me wrong,” Vermes continued. “But they were also good.”

One of the match’s most notable moments seemed like a scene straight out of a Saturday morning youth recreational soccer league.

Around the 65th minute, LAFC’s Mateusz Bogusz was called for offside. On the broadcast, it looked like Jake Davis had restarted the play — and inexplicably, Melia picked up the ball inside the penalty area.

This instance — Melia receiving a back-pass and picking up the ball — is the only handball offense a goalkeeper can commit inside the penalty area.

However, unlike a normal handball in the box, a goalkeeper’s handling offense inside the penalty area results in an indirect free kick (meaning two players must touch the ball before it goes into the goal), instead of a penalty kick.

In Melia’s explanation, he felt the referee had signaled that the ball was moving when Andreu Fontás restarted the match. So, when Davis passed the ball back to Melia, he thought they were resetting the offside line and preparing for the restart.

“That was why I was walking forward,” Melia said. “Because I was trying to get closer to where the actual offside was. And then they started to run at me, and I was like, ‘What’s going on here? I’m just gonna pick this up.’”

The problem, though, is that while the offside call was made roughly where Melia picked up the ball, the actual offside occurred just yards into Sporting’s defensive half.

Essentially, the restart should’ve been taken roughly near where Davis was when he kicked the ball back to Melia.

It was an odd sequence, something you don’t see often, but the important thing for Sporting was what came next.

Bouanga’s shot never curled back in toward the goal and sailed wide. As infrequent as those scenarios are, Sporting has practiced how to handle the shots and scenarios that come from indirect free kicks.

Nobody was more important on that kick than Memo Rodriguez, who made his first start with Sporting KC. Rodriguez was the player furthest wide of the initial wall when the free kick was set up. He charged down Bouanga at the moment of the first touch and forced his shot to start wider than Bouanga wanted.

“Ultimately, you have to have a runner pressuring the ball,” Rodriguez said. “Once they touch the ball, it’s gonna be a shot. I don’t think they’re gonna pass it from there.”

And it helped preserve a KC draw.

Up next: Sporting KC returns home on Saturday night, hosting the San Jose Earthquakes at Children’s Mercy Park for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.