Sporting KC was inches away from a wild comeback against RSL. Match recap & reaction

A wild ending at Children’s Mercy Park nearly saw Sporting KC come back from multiple self-inflicted deficits.

But Erik Thommy’s stoppage-time strike hit off the post and back out, leaving Sporting KC with a 4-3 loss to Real Salt Lake on Wednesday Night.

“I can’t deny the fight of the guys,” Sporting manager Peter Vermes said after the match. “But defensively, (we’re) just too soft.”

Sporting KC (3 wins, 11 losses, 5 draws) had no answer for Real Salt Lake’s speed on the counterattack, and the top team in the Western Conference needed little time on the ball to create a four-goal performance.

Meanwhile, Sporting KC — despite having much more possession and nearly twice as many shots as RSL — was doomed by sloppy play on the midfield and back line.

Vermes praised Real Salt Lake’s quality, as the win extended RSL’s unbeaten streak to 15 games. But Vermes also felt RSL didn’t create its own chances as much as Sporting did for its opponent.

Defender Zorhan Bassong offered a similar assessment.

“All (game), I feel like they never really put us so much in danger,” Bassong said. “I feel like there’s always little mistakes. We didn’t take our guy in the midfield. Sometimes we’re losing the ball for nothing. We don’t have any pressure.

“It’s not normal to lose again when we score three goals like that. It’s not normal to concede four goals like that.”

Three of RSL’s four goals looked the same. The speedy Anderson Julio and Andres Gomez repeatedly found space behind Andreu Fontas, either by beating him one-on-one or filling spaces he had vacated.

Both had one-on-one finishes, with Gomez beating Tim Melia twice in the 14th and 51st minutes.

Gomez’s first goal came after Nemanja Radoja failed to control a pass from Thommy. Diego Luna pounced on the loose ball and made one pass in behind Fontas for Gomez.

Julio scored in the 33rd minute to put Real Salt Lake back ahead after Stephen Afrifa tied the score at 1-1 in the 28th minute.

Julio’s strike came off a turnover when Sporting’s defense was exposed with numbers forward into the attacking phase. A long pass into the space between Bassong and Fontas sprung Julio.

Vermes called his team naive in some of the situations and lamented the space that opened up for RSL to play through.

“We turn it over and now we’re opened up, and now we’re trying to recover,” Vermes said. “And there’s lots of space on the field. When you do that, teams can punish you. ... We left ourselves way too open and not compact enough defensively.”

Matt Crooks added Real Salt Lake’s fourth goal in the 84th minute on a header. No one had tracked his run into the box. The play started from a midfield giveaway.

Crooks’ goal proved to be the winner for the road team and was sandwiched between Willy Agada’s two strikes, the latter of which set the stage for Sporting’s stoppage time flurry.

Another important moment: Johnny Russell’s first-half penalty kick miss loomed over the scoreline as Sporting KC fell short again. But there were other mistakes that hurt Sporting in the 4-3 defeat.

“It’s there,” Vermes said. “It’s just, you know, you dig yourself such a deep hole in the kind of goals and the number of goals that you give up in these games. It’s just too easy.”

Up next: SKC his the road, taking on the defending MLS Cup champions Columbus Crew on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m.

Daniel Sperry covers soccer for The Star. He can be reached at sperry.danielkc@gmail.com.