Sporting Kansas City beats shorthanded Atlanta United FC 2-0

ATLANTA — Turns out, the showdown between the two leading teams in Major League Soccer was not a fair fight.

Atlanta went a man down in the first half — losing its starting goalkeeper, no less — and Sporting Kansas City took advantage of the extra player to score a pair of second-half goals, snapping United’s eight-game unbeaten streak with a 2-0 victory Wednesday night.

Daniel Salloi and Gerso Fernandes scored for Kansas City, while keeper Tim Melia came up with several huge saves to preserve the victory. Sporting has only one loss in its last 10 games, pulling one point ahead of United atop the overall MLS standings though Atlanta has played one less game.

It was the first time Atlanta has been shut out at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, where another big crowd (44,696) turned out to watch the 2-yearold team that has quickly become one of the top squads in MLS.

“We were up a man for long period of the game,” Kansas City coach Peter Vermes said. “They’re a really, really good team.”

In what was billed as an early season preview of a possible MLS Cup matchup in December, Atlanta United played the last 56 minutes a man down after keeper Brad Guzan was given a red card for taking out Kansas City’s Khiry Shelton just outside the penalty area as he broke in all alone . Rookie Paul Christensen, an emergency signee filling in for injured backup Alec Kann, made a big save shortly after entering for his MLS debut but couldn’t hold off Sporting.

“When we were playing 11 vs. 11, I thought we were better than Kansas City,” United coach Gerardo Martino said through a translator.

While Atlanta was tightlipped about the red card, Vermes said it was the proper call.

“They deserved to have the goalkeeper thrown out,” he said. “That was a bad situation on his part.”

In the 67th minute, Salloi curled a shot from beyond the box to beat a diving Christensen just inside the right post. In the closing minutes, with United pressing forward in search of the tying goal, Fernandes took a long pass and went in all alone on Christensen, deking out the 22-year-old keeper and guiding the clinching goal into an open net.

Melia made eight saves, including a pair of acrobatic stops on free-kick specialist Kevin Kratz.