Sporting Kansas City kicks off its 27th season on Saturday, Feb. 27 in a matchup against a revamped Atlanta United team at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
The long-awaited return of Sporting KC soccer is set for 2 p.m. CT with the match broadcasted national on FS1 and FOX Deportes and available to stream at foxsports.com and in the FOX Sports App. The game will also air live locally on Sports Radio 810 WHB (English) and La Grande 1340 AM (Spanish). 810 WHB will have a Special Sporting Preview Show starting at 12 p.m. CT Sunday and will have the Final Whistle postgame show immediately following the conclusion of the match.
Manager and sporting director Peter Vermes is entering his 14th year of service at Sporting and is looking to start 2022 on the right foot. Vermes and Sporting made the playoffs for the 10th time in the last 11 years and finished the regular season in third place in the Western Conference last season. Atlanta finished fifth in the Eastern Conference and was bounced in Round One of the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs by eventual MLS Cup winners, NYCFC.
Below, we provide a statistical preview of the opening-weekend fixture in our season premiere of By the Numbers, presented by the Kansas Department of Transportation.
Head-to-Head
- Sporting is 1-1-1 against Atlanta in all competitions since Atlanta joined MLS in 2017.
- Sporting is 1-0-0 against Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium winning the only matchup 2-0
- The last meeting between these two sides came on May 5, 2019, with Atlanta winning 3-0
- In the three regular season meetings between the clubs, the home team has not won
- The two sides have not played outside of MLS competition
- Sporting forward Daniel Salloi is the only active Sporting KC player with a goal against Atlanta.
Atlanta United
- 2021 MLS record: 13-9-12, 51 points (5th in Eastern Conference)
- 2021 MLS home record: 9-3-5 (25 GF, 14 GA)
- 2021 MLS Cup Playoffs: Lost to NYCFC in Eastern Conference Round One
- All-time Honors: One MLS Cup (2018), one US Open Cup (2019) one Campeones Cup (2019)
- Atlanta is 3-1-1 in MLS regular-season home openers.
- In 2021 Atlanta led MLS in total attendance (747,386) and average attendance (43,964).
- This will be the first time in club history Atlanta opens the MLS regular season at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
- For the first time since 2019, Atlanta is not competing in the CONCACAF Champions League.
- Atlanta ranked first in MLS last season in average possession with 57.45% possession per game.
- Atlanta led MLS last season with a 53.86% successful duel rate.
- Atlanta went 11-2-6 when scoring the first goal but was 2-7-3 when conceding the first goal.
- Atlanta conceded a goal just twice in the first 15 minutes of matches last season.
- Midfielder Marcelino Moreno finished second in fouls suffered last season, being fouled 104 times in 2021.
- Goalkeeper Brad Guzan had a goals-against-average of 1.00 in 29 matches played.
- Forward Josef Martinez led Atlanta in goals for the fourth time in the last five seasons with 12, while Moreno netted nine goals.
- Guzan leads Atlanta in all-time MLS regular-season appearances with 143 matches played. Martinez ranks second among all active Atlanta players with 118 but is just three appearances away from second.
- Atlanta is led by Gonzalo Pineda, who is entering his first full season with the club after signing a three-and-a-half-year contract on Aug. 12, 2021. He went 10-3-3 last season.
Sporting Kansas City
- 2021 MLS record: 17-10-7, 58 points (3rd in Western Conference)
- 2021 MLS away record: 8-7-2 (26 GF, 23 GA)
- 2021 MLS Cup Playoffs: Lost to Real Salt Lake in Western Conference Semifinals
- All-time Honors: Two MLS Cups (2000, 2013), four Open Cups (2004, 2012, 2015, 2017), one Supporters' Shield (2000)
- Sporting leads MLS with 15 season-opening wins all-time, posting a 15-7-4 record in Week 1.
- Sporting also leads MLS with 10 wins in road openers, going 10-12-4 in those matches.
- Sporting boasted an 8-7-2 road record last season, the third most road wins in MLS
- Sporting earned 19 points from a losing position, second-most in MLS last year.
- Sporting scored the second-most goals in MLS in 2021 with 58 goals.
- Sporting led MLS with 13 wins by multiple goals (regular season and playoffs)
- Sporting led MLS in passes (17,698), successful passes (15,131) and touches (24,040). Sporting also ranked second in average possession, possessing the ball 55.24% of the time.
- Sporting KC forward and 2021 Landon Donovan MLS MVP candidate Daniel Salloi led all of MLS with 15 goals from open play. His 16 non-penalty goals were tied for the league lead.
- Sporting’s captain and forward Johnny Russell had the longest goal contribution streak last season when he either scored or assisted on a goal in 10 straight matches. Russell also became the highest-scoring Scottish-born player in MLS history with 40 career goals.
- The Salloi, Russell tandem became one of the most lethal duos in Sporting history combining for 31 goals (Salloi 16, Russell 15) the most by any duo in one season since Preki (18) and Digital Takawira (13) also combined for 31 goals in 1996.
- Sporting went 11-0-3 in matches where Salloi scored.
- Defender Andreu Fontas broke the MLS single-season records for passes (2818), successful passes (2515) and touches (3178). Fontas also led MLS in the added goals metric with 3.68 added goals.
- Remi Walter had three matches last season in which he had 100% passing accuracy (minimum of 30 passes).
- Graham Zusi has made the most appearances of any Sporting KC player with 320 matches played in a Sporting KC uniform.
- Goalkeeper Tim Melia is one 10-win season away from becoming the first goalkeeper in MLS history to win double-digit games in eight consecutive seasons.
Milestones and Miscellany
- Graham Zusi is 20 minutes shy of 30,000 minutes played for Sporting in all competitions. He will become the first Sporting player to eclipse the 30,000-minute mark.
- Sporting ranks second in MLS history with 339 regular season wins and will look to become just the second team in league history to surpass 350 wins
- Five players are in contention to make their MLS debuts on Sunday: forward Ozzie Cisneros, defender Logan Ndenbe, defender Kayden Pierre, winger Marinos Tzionis and defender Robert Voloder
- Peter Vermes is 22 matches away from becoming the first coach in MLS history to coach one club for 500 matches (incl. all competitions).
