Saturday, July 21, 2012

Back Home

Sporting KC are back at Livestrong Sporting Park after the 3 game road trip to take on  the New England Revolution in a rematch of the home opener for Sporting KC.  Unlike the home opener on St. Patrick's Day, this game is going to be brutal, temperatures are going to be well into the triple digits.  The heat wave in Kansas City continues and tomorrow's going to be a rough with the weather.

New England comes into the game after traveling to Montreal where they lost 2-1 to the Impact.  They will be without their new designated player, Jerry Bengtson, who is with Roger Espinoza and Honduras for the Olympics.  They still have Saer Sene up top though, and he's had quite a successful first season so far in Kansas City.  They're lost their last two league games, both to Canadian clubs, 1-0 to Toronto and 2-1 to the Impact.

Sporting KC is fighting a bit of an issue with squad selection, especially in the midfield.  Roger Espinoza is away on Olympic duty, Graham Zusi has missed the last two games with injury (although it appears that he could return tomorrow), and Peterson Joseph is suspended for his red card against Houston.  Bobby Convey could very well return to the starting lineup for the first time since May as well.  It does appear that Chance Myers will miss his first game of the season due to injury, and Seth Sinovic also looks like he could potentially miss the game as he is questionable.  If both can't go, it'll be the first game in over a year that neither will have started for Sporting KC.  Michael Harrington would take one of those spots, the other could be Korede Aiyegbusi, or possibly new signing Neven Markovic.  The selection issues for KC are no easy task.

Nielsen
Harrington - Collin - Besler - Sinovic
Nagamura - Thomas
Zusi
Kamara - Bunbury - Convey

Number to Remember - 8 - Not counting the season opener against New England, that's the number of goals that Sporting KC has scored at Livestrong Sporting Park this summer in league play.  That's a fairly low amount, no where near enough if KC wants to really compete in league play.  Goals need to start coming at home.  Whether the team gets over hyped from the energy of the crowd or what, this HAS to improve.

Key Match Up - Aurelien Collin vs Saer Sene - The two Frenchmen going up against each other could be a good match up to watch.  Sene has 8 goals on the season for the Revs, their leading scorer.  Collin shutting him down will be his main priority.

PREDICTION - The potential changes in the lineup that KC could throw out tomorrow could cause some concern for KC's offense especially.  The Revolution are currently tied for 7th in the Eastern Conference and have only won twice on the road this season.  If KC wants to be taken seriously as contenders, this is a game that you win, going away.

SKC - 2 (Sapong, Kamara)
NE - 0

2 comments:

Grace said...

Sort of funny to think that midfield depth has become an issue. Seems like we can never have enough players to satisfy our needs at any position.

bookmaking sports said...

There are anything like to watch your team in their home. It is the most amazing stuff.