Category: Sporting KC

Sporting Kansas City (7-3-6, 6th place) will reach the halfway-point of the team’s regular season run when it visits the Vancouver Whitecaps FC (10-7-2, 1st place) at 8 p.m. on Sunday.

Sporting KC boasts the fewest losses — and goals allowed — of any MLS team this year while leading all clubs in scoring with 1.56 goals per game through the first four months of the 2015 campaign.

The match will air live on KMCI-TV 38 the Spot locally and on SKCTV affiliates across the Midwest with three hours of on-site coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. In addition, radio broadcasts will be available for local listeners on Sports Radio 810 WHB (English) and La Grande 1340 AM (Spanish).

The MLS Week 19 finale will feature Major League Soccer’s best two teams, based on points per game, led by several of the league’s top performers. In net, Sporting KC starter Tim Melia leads MLS with a 0.63 goals against average (GAA) in 2015 while Vancouver’s David Ousted is the only goalkeeper with 10 wins this season. The reigning MLS Player of the Month, Ousted has won three straight Save of the Week honors and his 1.14 career GAA is fifth best in MLS history.

Offensively, Sporting KC midfielder Benny Feilhaber ranks second in MLS with nine assists this year and has been on the scoresheet with a goal or an assist in each of his past four MLS matches. Sunday’s clash will also showcase two of the top scoring newcomers in Major League Soccer with Whitecaps FC forward Octavio Rivero and Sporting KC striker Krisztian Nemeth each leading their teams with seven goals on the season.

Rivero (Uruguay) is one of Vancouver’s three designated players from South America along with midfielders Matias Laba (Argentina) and Pedro Morales (Chile). The latter was Major League Soccer’s Newcomer of the Year in 2014, though has missed a month of action with a calf injury.

Both teams will be without two players on Sunday due to national team commitments during the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup. Sporting KC designated player Graham Zusi is with the U.S. Men’s National Team, who will face Haiti at 7:30 p.m. tonight (FOX Sports 1 and UniMas), while tomorrow’s Group B match between Canada and Jamaica will feature Marcel de Jong (Sporting KC), Russell Teibert (Whitecaps FC) and Darren Mattocks (Whitecaps FC).

With back-to-back matches ahead against Canadian opponents, Sporting KC will take to the turf at BC Place — the site of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup final one week earlier — seeking the club’s second road win of the season (1-3-3) and first against a Western Conference opponent (0-3-2). Manager Peter Vermes led Sporting KC to five straight unbeaten results against the Whitecaps since their entry into Major League Soccer in 2011 before that streak was snapped a year ago with a 2-0 loss in the lone 2014 meeting.

Like Sporting KC, the Whitecaps FC have won three of their last four matches and also played the Colorado Rapdis in their previous outing. Though Sporting KC earned a 2-0 victory over the Rapids at home on June 27, Vancouver fell 2-1 in Colorado on the Fourth of July to conclude a five-game road trip.

In-game updates can be found online at SportingKC.com/GameOn, via Twitter at @SKCGameday and through the Sporting Club Uphoria mobile app.
– Story from Sporting KC

Sporting Kansas City will put a six-game home winning streak on the line when the team is host to FC Dallas at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday at Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kan.

The match is part of the 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup. A limited number of tickets for the Round of 16 match-up is available on Ticketmaster.com and match tickets and parking are included in Sporting Kansas City season ticket packages as Special Game A.

For those not in attendance, SportingKC.com will provide a live stream and in-game updates can be found by following @SKCGameday on Twitter.

The winner of Wednesday’s match will secure a berth in the quarterfinals on July 21-22 to face tonight’s victor between the Houston Dynamo and Colorado Rapids.

Sporting Kansas City last reached the quarterfinal round in 2012 and has suffered home losses in the Round of 16 each of the past two years, while FC Dallas are aiming to advance into the final eight for a third straight season.

Both teams are past champions in the competition, making tomorrow’s encounter the only match-up of the round to feature two teams with their name on the Dewar Challenge Trophy. Sporting KC is a two-time trophy holder (2004, 2012) while FC Dallas was the tournament’s top team in 1997.

Sporting Kansas City began this year’s U.S. Open Cup campaign with a 1-0 victory over St. Louis FC (USL) earlier this month at Sporting Park.

Graham Zusi provided the game’s only goal, however the U.S. Men’s National Team midfielder is now one of two players currently on international duty along with Marcel de Jong (Canada).

FC Dallas eliminated OKC Energy FC — the USL affiliate of Sporting Kansas City — in the previous round with a 4-1 victory courtesy of braces from Michael Barrios and David Texeira, two of seven international players on the club’s roster. Manager Oscar Pareja will be without three players on Wednesday due to national team call-ups as Blas Perez (Panama), Tesho Akindele (Canada) and Kyle Bekker (Canada) are among six FC Dallas players named to Gold Cup rosters.

Wednesday’s meeting is the third of 2015 between the Western Conference sides and comes after each earned multi-goal home victories in the series. FC Dallas handed Sporting KC the team’s first loss by a 3-1 score at Toyota Stadium in Week 2 (March 14), while Sporting KC responded with a 4-0 victory over FC Dallas at Sporting Park in Week 13 (May 29).

The two teams have been drawn together only once in Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup history. In 2004, KC prevailed 4-0 in the quarterfinals en route to the team’s first U.S. Open Cup championship.

The Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup has been held annually since 1914 and is open to all amateur/professional soccer teams affiliated with U.S. Soccer.

The 2015 edition is headlined by the largest field in the modern era (1995-present) with 89 teams in contention when the first round began. This year’s winner will earn a $250,000 grand prize and will qualify for the 2016-2017 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League.

Sporting Kansas City will continue its 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup campaign at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday when the team is host to FC Dallas in a Round of 16 match-up at Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kan.

A limited number of tickets are available via Ticketmaster.com and the match is included as Special Game A in season ticket packages.

SportingKC.com will provide a live stream of the mid-week match and in-game updates can be found by following @SKCGameday on Twitter. Wednesday’s winner will advance to play the victor between the Houston Dynamo and Colorado Rapids in the tournament quarterfinals on July 21-22.

U.S. Women’s watch party tonight

KC Live! in the Kansas City Power and Light District will be the host of a free watch party – in partnership with WIN for KC, Sporting KC and FC Kansas City — for fans of all ages as the U.S. Women’s National Team takes on Germany at 6 p.m. on Tuesday in the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

The top two teams in the FIFA women’s rankings will meet at Olympic Stadium in Montreal, Canada, with a berth in World Cup final on the line. Kansas City was the highest-rated local market in the country for the United States’ 1-0 win over China on Friday, which was watched by a network-record 5.7 million viewers on FOX.

U.S. Men’s soccer action

The U.S. Men’s National Team will also be in action this week as they face Guatemala at 5:30 p.m. on Friday at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tenn., live on FOX Sports 1, UniMas and Univision Deportes Network. Sporting Kansas City midfielderGraham Zusi is one of 23 players on Jurgen Klinsmann’s roster for the international friendly, which comes four days before the start of the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Friday is also the final day of fan voting for the 2015 AT&T MLS All-Star Game. Ballots can be cast online at MLSsoccer.com or via Twitter/Facebook/Instagram until 2 p.m. on Friday. Eight Sporting KC players are eligible with Matt Besler currently leading all defenders in the All-Star vote, while Graham Zusi and Benny Feilhaber hold the final two midfield positions.