Category: Sporting KC

Sporting KC to play home opener Saturday against Houston

Sporting Kansas City will open its home season on Saturday against the Houston Dynamo in action at Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City, Kansas.

The match begins at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets for Saturday’s home opener are available online at SeatGeek.com and all fans in attendance will receive Sporting KC rally towels. The club will take the field in the new State Line 3.0 kits for the first time.

Sporting kicked off its 2022 campaign last Sunday with a 3-1 defeat at Atlanta United FC in front of 67,523 fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the most fans to ever attend an MLS match involving Sporting Kansas City. Houston meanwhile battled to a scoreless draw at home with Real Salt Lake in Week 1 last weekend.

Sporting is 15-3-8 all-time in MLS regular season home openers, including a 4-1-6 record at Children’s Mercy Park, and Saturday is the first of two showdowns between these longtime rivals in the 2022 MLS regular season.

Last year, the two sides faced each other on three occasions with the home team taking all three points in all three matches. In the two matches at Children’s Mercy Park, Sporting bested the Dynamo 3-2 in May and 4-2 in early October.

Leading the way for Sporting once again in 2022 is team captain Johnny Russell. Last season the Scotsman netted 15 goals and added eight assists for Sporting KC.

On the other wing of the pitch is Hungarian international Daniel Salloi. Salloi opened his scoring account in Atlanta with an 85th minute volley from close range into the roof of the net. The Sporting KC Academy product is coming off a career year in which he put the ball in the back of the net 16 times and added eight assists as well.

Sunday also marked the debut of Belgian left back Logan Ndenbe. The 22-year-old arrived in Kansas City from French side Guingamp this offseason and did not have to wait long to make his first MLS appearance.

Fellow defender and Sporting KC veteran Graham Zusi also started for Sporting in the opener, surpassing 30,000 minutes played for Sporting in all competitions. Zusi is the first player in league history to play 14 seasons for one club and is in line for his 300th career MLS start on Saturday.

Paulo Nagamura, a former Sporting KC midfielder and SKC II head coach, returns to Kansas City as the first-year head coach of the Dynamo along with Sporting Legend Jimmy Nielsen as an assistant coach for Houston. The two MLS Cup champions have a bolstered Dynamo team that is looking to improve upon their last place finish in the Western Conference last season.

Houston brought in MLS veterans Steve Clark, Corey Baird and Daniel Steres this past offseason. They also made a splash signing, bringing in Paraguayan forward Sebastian Ferreira for a club record $4.3 million fee.

The Dynamo were in the news again this week, signing Atletico Madrid and Mexican National Team captain Hector Herrera. The El Tri skipper will not be with the team this week as he will join Houston this summer following the conclusion of the La Liga season.

Sporting midfielder Uri Rosell will miss Saturday’s match after suffering a hamstring injury in the team’s season opener. Houston has one name on the availability report in Griffin Dorsey who is questionable with a left leg injury.

For the first time in 2022, Sporting’s new local broadcast partner 38 The Spot will air the game with Nate Bukaty, Jacob Peterson and Aly Trost calling the action. The match will also be nationally televised in Spanish on Univision and TUDN with an English live stream on Twitter. There will be live updates throughout the contest from @SKCMatchday on Twitter and in the Sporting KC mobile app, as well as radio broadcasts on SiriusXM FC, ESPN 94.5 FM and La Grande 1340 in Spanish.

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Sporting KC drops season opener to Atlanta United, 3-1

Sporting Kansas City (0-1-0, 0 points) opened the 2022 Major League Soccer season with a 3-1 loss at Atlanta United FC (1-0-0, 3 points) on Sunday.

Daniel Salloi struck for Sporting late in the second half, however goals from Luiz Araujo, Dom Dwyer and Caleb Wiley propelled the hosts to the week 1 win in front of 67,523 fans at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta – the largest crowd for an MLS match involving Sporting KC.

Sporting nearly opened the scoring in the 12th minute as offseason addition Logan Ndenbe won a free kick on the left flank and Remi Walter floated the set-piece service into the box.

Atlanta goalkeeper Brad Guzan came off his line to punch away the delivery but failed to significantly alter the flight of the ball, which fell to Andreu Fontas at the backpost. The Spanish centerback settled and sent a shot toward net, however Atlanta defender George Campbell recovered to clear the ball at the goalline.

In the 20th minute, Atlanta capitalized on a giveaway in Sporting’s own half to grab the 1-0 lead. Tyler Wolff, the 19-year-old son of Sporting Legend Josh Wolff, earned his first MLS assist as he played a pass to Josef Martinez, whose backheel set up Araujo for his fifth regular season goal since the Brazilian signed as a designated player last summer from Lille.

Araujo would exit with an injury minutes later as Dwyer entered the match to face the club which he played his first six professional seasons with from 2012-2017. Dwyer, who signed with Atlanta earlier in the week, would make the most of the opportunity, doubling the Five Stripes’ lead in first half stoppage time on another assist from Martinez.

Sporting – who had come close to leveling the match twice prior to conceding, first with a left-footed shot from Remi Walter in the 37th minute and again on a goalmouth scramble at the start of first half stoppage time – would be forced into a substitution in the 50th minute as Jose Mauri replaced Uri Rosell, who exited early due to injury in his first appearance for the club since 2014 after returning to the team this offseason.

Both sides would continue to create scoring chances in a back-and-forth second half. Atlanta threatened to find a third goal in the 54th minute if not for an important intervention by Nicolas Isimat-Mirin with a superb block to deflect Martinez’s first-time effort from 15 yards out over the bar. In the 67th minute, Salloi supplied Khiry Shelton with a well-weighted pass inside the penalty area, however Shelton’s shot was ultimately off target.

Dwyer, whose goal was his first in the MLS regular season since 2019, almost bagged a brace in the 77th minute, connecting with a cross from second-half substitute Brooks Lennon only to see his sliding shot roll wide of the net under pressure from Tim Melia. The Sporting goalkeeper was called into action again three minutes later to keep out a free kick taken by Marcelino Moreno.

Sporting cut the 2-0 deficit in half with five minutes remaining in regulation as Salloi hammered home a volley on a corner kick taken by fellow Sporting KC Academy product Felipe Hernandez.

Coming off a career-year as an MLS All-Star and MLS MVP finalist, it marks the second straight year Salloi has scored in the club’s season opener. Salloi now has 32 regular season goals to go along with 18 assists, making him only the 11th player in team history to contributed a combined 50 goals and assists for the club.

With the visitors pushing forward in pursuit of a last-gasp equalizer, it was Atlanta that struck instead as 17-year-old Caleb Wiley scored on his MLS debut.

The homegrown player raced onto a through ball from Moreno and put the game out of reach in the 89th minute. Atlanta would be denied a fourth goal in second half stoppage time as Melia made his third and final save of the day in a one-on-one situation with Brooks Lennon.

Sporting will now return to Kansas City for the club’s highly anticipated home opener against Houston Dynamo FC at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 5, at Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City, Kansas.

Tickets are available online at SeatGeek.com and the Western Conference showdown will be nationally televised on Univision and TUDN with an English-language stream available on Twitter in addition to the club’s local broadcast airing on 38 The Spot.

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Sporting KC kicks off season today

Sporting Kansas City will kick off the club’s 27th Major League Soccer season at 2 p.m. on Sunday at Atlanta United FC with a nationally-televised cross-conference clash live on FS1 and FOX Deportes.

The earliest regular season match in club history will be played inside a full-capacity Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, where Sporting Kansas City earned a 2-0 win in 2018 in the team’s only previous trip to the venue.

Since opening in 2017, Mercedes-Benz Stadium has hosted MLS Cup, the MLS All-Star Game, Campeones Cup and the U.S. Open Cup Final in addition to the Super Bowl and College Football Playoff National Championship.

Goalkeeper Tim Melia – whose next win will be the 100th of his career in all competitions for the club – made eight saves in for the clean sheet as Sporting became the first team in MLS history to shut out Atlanta in a regular season match at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Daniel Salloi provided the game-winning goal in the victory and is coming off a scintillating 2021 season in which he was an MLS MVP finalist with a league-leading 16 non-penalty goals as well as eight assists.

On the opposite wing from Salloi, Sporting captain Johnny Russell ended 2021 in a phenomenal run of form as he contributed a goal or assist in his final 10 regular season appearances. With a goal or assist in his next match, Russell would tie for the third longest streak in league history.

Russell’s 71 combined regular season goals (40) and assists (31) since joining Sporting in 2018 are third most in MLS over that span.

Second on the list is Atlanta United FC striker Josef Martinez with an MLS best 70 goals in the past four seasons to go along with 11 assists.

Martinez led Atlanta United FC with 12 goals in 2021, while midfielder Marcelino Moreno recorded nine goals and five assists.

No player contributed more goals and assists for Atlanta in 2021 than Ezequiel Barco with seven goals and eight assists, however Barco will spend the 2022 season on loan to River Plate in Argentina.

Atlanta added nine players in the offseason, including former Sporting KC striker Dom Dwyer most recently, but no move was bigger than the record-setting acquisition of Designated Player Thiago Almada for a $16-million transfer fee. As of Wednesday, Almada’s availability for Sunday was questionable according to the club due to the processing of his visa.

Almada is one of four key players questionable for the Week 1 match-up along with Moreno (foot), Brooks Lennon (ankle) and U-22 signing Santiago Sosa (visa). Five additional players are out on the team’s availability report, including Jake Mulraney (leg), Emerson Hyndman (ACL), Franco Ibarra (visa) and Alan Franco (suspension).

Sporting Kansas City will be without Designated Players Alan Pulido (knee) and Gadi Kinda (knee) on Sunday due to injury, while the team also awaits the arrival of Nikola Vujnovic after signing on loan 10 days ago. Vujnovic was one of seven players signed by Sporting ahead of the 2022 campaign, including the U-22 trio of Logan Ndenbe, Robert Voloder and Marinos Tzionis in transfers as well as MLS veterans Ben Sweat, Uri Rosell and Kortne Ford.

Complementing the newcomers is a veteran core led by Graham Zusi, whose 320 regular season games played are not only the most in club history but also rank most among one-club MLS players all-time. Zusi, who is 20 minutes shy of surpassing 30,000 minutes played across all competitions in his career, will also become the first player in league history to play 14 seasons in MLS all with one club, breaking a record first set by C.J. Brown (1998-2010 with Chicago) and now shared by Sporting midfielder Roger Espinoza (2008-2012, 2015-2022).

Like Zusi, Sporting Manager Peter Vermes enters his 14th MLS season all with one club. The longest tenured head coach in MLS and the sixth longest tenured manager in global soccer according to a recent analysis, Vermes has led Sporting to road wins in season openers each of the last two years. In fact, Sporting’s 15 victories in season openers and 10 wins in road openers both are most among all MLS clubs in league history.

Under Vermes, Sporting has established a formidable style of play that has produced playoff berths in 10 of the past 11 seasons. Predicated on possession, Sporting (55.24%) ranked second in the category in Major League Soccer in 2021 – trailing only Atlanta United FC (57.45%), who embark on the club’s first full season with head coach Gonzalo Pineda after his appointment last August.

In addition to the nationally televised broadcasts on FS1 and FOX Deportes, Sunday’s showdown can also be streamed live in the FOX Sports app or online at FOXSports.com . Sports Radio 810 WHB and La Grande 1340 AM will carry the match locally for listeners, and fans can also access the Sporting KC mobile app or @SKCMatchday on Twitter for in-game updates.

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