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Aside from a bit of sloppiness, these are exactly the types of games one would hope for from the seemingly meaningless summer friendlies. A few good goals, a young player to overreact about in Kelechi Iheanacho, and a 4-1 victory over a Sporting Kansas City team in midseason form gave City fans about all they could ask for in Wednesday's friendly.
It took just four minutes for City to open the scoring, with Bruno Zuculini giving City the lead against the defending MLS champions. The Argentine midfielder finished nicely from about 19 yards to start what amounted to a quite fun first half at Sporting Park.
A sloppy defensive line from City went a long way toward SKC equalizing later on in the first half. CJ Sapong slipped past Kolarov and was played onside by Dedryck Boyata. SKC midfielder Benny Feilhaber found Sapong on the lob, with the forward not wasting his chance to equalize past Willy Caballero.
Boyata somewhat made up for the defensive sloppiness with his 45th-minute goal to put City back in the lead. A free kick earned and taken by Jesus Navas--Navas dances to the outside, defender grabs him, you know the drill--found the head of Boyata, who beat SKC defender Aurelien Colin through the set piece traffic to regain the lead.
City added a third in the 72nd minute when Michael Kafari took down Scott Sinclair in the area. Kolarov scored the ensuing spot kick, though, as many noted on Twitter, it would have been nice to see Kelechi's efforts rewarded with a chance from the spot.
Kelechi's bold attacking persistence would pay off, as the Nigerian prospect would cap off an excellent City debut with a fine left-footed finish to bring City's tally to four. At only 17, his bright performance gave even more hope that his situation with City would be fully sorted within the near future.
City's U.S. tour will continue against AC Milan on Sunday in Pittsburgh. Surely it can't happen the same way as last year's 5-3 in the Audi Cup, but we can only hope we get some excitement of that nature.