Friday, October 21, 2011

Get the Win and it's Ours

Sporting KC close out the regular season tomorrow night in DC when they take on DC United at RFK Stadium. It's a huge game for Sporting KC as a win can see the Wizards clinch first place in the Eastern Conference. DC saw their playoff hopes ended on Wednesday when they drew 1-1 with Portland thanks to a goal from Dwayne De Rosario. De Rosario is expected to play tomorrow although there were some doubts due to a shin injury that he picked up in the game against Portland. The MVP candidate will be the main threat to watch out for as DC tries to play the spoiler role against KC.

Kansas City has multiple ways they can end up clinching the East tomorrow, but the simplest way is to just take care of business tomorrow night and beat DC. The win will clinch the top spot and guarantee that the route to MLS Cup for the Eastern Conference will go through Kansas City and LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. Something that could be a huge advantage for KC come playoff time. The team is as healthy as is possible heading into this game, so Peter Vermes should be able to change a basically unchanged lineup from the one that defeated the Red Bulls last weekend at LSP.

Nielsen
Myers - Collin - Besler - Sinovic
Zusi - Cesar - Espinoza
Kamara - Bunbury - Bravo

Number to Remember - 1 - One game left for Sporting KC, one point separates KC from 3rd place Columbus. Getting at least 1 point tomorrow guarantees KC a top 2 finish as they'll finish above Philadelphia and that would tie them with Houston's maximum points. And with KC owning the tie breaker on the Dynamo, KC would be assured a top 2 spot.

Key Match Up - Aurelien Collin vs Dwayne De Rosario - Collin seems the likeliest to get the honor of matching up with the MVP candidate. DeRo always seems to find a way to score and he'll be looking to guarantee himself the Golden Boot.

PREDICTION - DC is definitely not just going to lie down for KC, this is a game that if KC is going to win they're going to have to fight for it. I think DC could put out a few bench players though which could be enough to tilt the table in KC's favor, but remember KC's win in the final game of last season with a diminished lineup against playoff bound San Jose. Still this is KC's game to win.

SKC - 2 (Kamara, Bravo)
DC - 1 (De Rosario)

2 comments:

Nathan Martin said...

Excited.

Drew said...

Glad to see SKC was able to turn it around, and though I'm not a fan of Vermes I'm excited to see what they'll do in the play-offs. I think going in their the 4rd best team behind LA, Seattle and RSL going into this; though I can see the NYRB doing it in the play-offs in one off and two-legged ties.