Sporting Kansas City continues its four-game road swing with a midweek trip to the Pacific Northwest to take on the Portland Timbers.
Sporting KC and the Timbers are level on points, but manager Peter Vermes’ side has two games in hand heading into Wednesday’s match at Providence Park, which kicks off at 9:30 p.m.
Pregame coverage begins at 9 p.m. on KMCI-TV’s 38 the Spot and SKCTV across the Midwest.
Sporting KC is in the midst of a three-game losing streak, their longest since a four-game skid last year that ran from Aug. 19 – Sept. 6. This year, the losing streak began on Aug. 19 against San Jose followed by losses on the road to the Columbus Crew and Colorado Rapids.
Sporting KC has conceded 10 goals over the past three games and 18 over the past eight. In contrast, Sporting KC allowed just 17 goals through their first 17 MLS matches.
Conversely, Portland is currently on a nine-game home unbeaten streak dating back to May 2 with a 6-0-3 record during that time. Over the last 15 MLS matches, Portland has gained the second-most points of any team in the League entering this week’s fixtures (8-4-3, 27 points).
Sporting KC has a 2-1-0 all-time record at Portland, including a 1-0 win the last time they visited the Rose City in June 2014. The Timbers have scored just two goals in those three matches combined. The away team in the series has won four of seven meetings in all competitions since 2011.
The Western Conference foes will meet three times during the 2015 regular season and Wednesday marks the second meeting this year. The teams first met on March 21, playing to a 0-0 draw at Sporting Park.
Sporting Kansas City will be without Marcel de Jong (Canada), Krisztian Nemeth (Hungary) and Erik Palmer-Brown (U.S. U-20s) on Wednesday due to international duty.
Meanwhile, Portland will be missing Will Johnson (Canada), Alvas Powell (Jamaica) and Michael Seaton (Jamaica) due to international duty with Liam Ridgewell and Diego Chara unavailable due to suspension.
Following the match, Sporting KC will conclude the road swing with its first trip to Orlando to take on expansion club Orlando City SC, Sunday night at the Orlando Citrus Bowl.
– Story from Sporting KC