Friday, March 28, 2014

Match Day 4: Looking for Road Points

Over 700 Sporting KC fans are descending on Colorado tonight ahead of tomorrow's game against the Rapids. Sporting KC head into the game looking to pick up their first road points of the season. They dropped one point in their only other road game in stoppage time in Seattle on the opening weekend of the season.

The Rapids head into the weekend having won their home opener last weekend, 2-0 over the Portland Timbers on a pair of penalties. Their other game this season was a 1-1 draw on the road against New York. Their three goals so far this season have all come from the penalty spot with Vicente Sanchez scoring two goals and DeShorn Brown with the other. The Rapids will be without a few contributors tomorrow due to injury or suspension. Chris Klute and Dillon Serna are both set to miss out due to injury, while midfielder, Jose Mari will miss out thanks to a red card picked up against Portland,.

Sporting isn't fairing much better in the goal scoring department as neither of their league goals this season have come from the run of play, one corner kick and one PK. With KC's elimination from the CONCACAF Champions League you have to wonder if designated player, Claudio Bieler will get the start at center forward over Dom Dwyer tomorrow. Sporting has scored just a single goal with the Englishman on the field this season, so switching things up may not be the worst thing in the world. On other fronts, Chance Myers is still questionable with a groin issue, which looks to keep him out for another game. He's joined on the injury list by Soony Saad and CJ Sapong. That would leave KC with Jacob Peterson, Sal Zizzo, and Graham Zusi to fill the wing forward positions tomorrow for KC. Other than that, KC has finally gotten a bit of rest after having five games in 15 days to start the season. The rest should do the team good heading into the weekend.

Kronberg
Ellis - Collin - Besler - Sinovic
Rosell - Nagamura
Feilhaber
Zusi - Bieler - Zizzo

Key Match Up - Claudio Bieler/Dom Dwyer vs Marvell Wynne and Drew Moor  - The Sporting offense needs to start finding their finishing boots. With that in mind it's probably time to throw Bieler out for a start in league play. I know based on my stats yesterday he's not the best defensively, but so far this year he's shown an increased tenacity on the field and has helped out defensively. But finding the back of the net is the main job for either him or Dwyer.

Number to Remember - 841 - That's the number of away fans traveling to Colorado per Robb Heineman earlier today on Twitter. That's an incredibly number traveling eight and a half hours (by car).

PREDICTION - Colorado has looked to be a good team so far this season, beating the Western Conference regular season champs at home and tying the Supporters' Shield winners on the road. They now face the MLS Cup champs at home. The Rapids will not be easy and even with the number of traveling KC fans there it's not going to be easy. The Rapids are a good young team that is going to cause KC a lot of issues, and I'm not sure KC's offense has woken up enough to get all 3 points.

SKC - 0
COL - 0

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To the road fans, very impressive turn out. You looked great on TV. Well done supporting our boys in blue. You deserved a great victory like that.

Anonymous said...

i would have gone too, but i'm only about halfway through the eighth i bought a couple weeks back.