Sporting Kansas City is getting ready to take on St. Louis in a historic first-ever meeting at Children’s Mercy Park between the two clubs this Saturday night. Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. CT and will be available to stream on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV in English and Spanish. The match will also be available on the radio locally on Sports Radio 810 WHB (English) and La Grande 1340 AM (Spanish). Standing room only tickets are available via SeatGeek.com.
1. CLIMBING THE STANDINGS
Sporting Kansas City will be looking to build upon last weekend’s positive return to MLS action when the squad hosts cross-state rivals St. Louis at Children’s Mercy Park on Saturday night. Sporting returned to MLS action following a three-week hiatus with a comfortable 3-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes last Saturday night.
The club was forced to deal with a late change as Designated Player Gadi Kinda was ruled out as a late scratch before the San Jose match with an anle injury. Kinda is officially questionable on the club’s Player Availability Report this week. Undeterred, Sporting scored their earliest goal of the season with Daniel Salloi’s strike just two minutes and six seconds into the match and never looked back.
With Sporting cruising to three points, the shutout was put under threat when San Jose earned a penalty kick in second-half stoppage time following Logan Ndenbe’s challenge on Jack Skahan, but goalkeeper Tim Melia made his league-leading 15th penalty save since 2015 to preserve the clean sheet. Melia has a .571 goals conceded percentage on penalty kicks (20 of 35) in the regular season, lowest in MLS regular season history among keepers with at least 20 penalties faced.
Since the start of May, Sporting have gone 7-4-5 in MLS play and lead MLS with 31 goals scored (1.94 goals per match). The team went 0-7-3 and scored just three goals in its first 10 league matches through the end of April.
2. LOOKING FOR REVENGE vs. CROSS-STATE FOES
Sporting Kansas City will be looking for revenge when the squad hosts cross-state rivals St. Louis at Children’s Mercy Park this weekend. It marks the first visit the brand new team from across Missouri pays a visit to Kansas City as the two clubs begin to forge a rivalry.
Sporting visited Citypark in St. Louis for the inaugural clash between the two teams on May 20, 2023 and suffered a 4-0 defeat. The hosts were essentially spotted two goals as referee Chris Penso awarded a penalty kick for a clean tackle from Nemanja Radoja that Eduard Lowen converted before Gadi Kinda was brought down with no whistle forthcoming, allowing Indiana Vassilev to double the lead. Niko Gioacchini and Vassilev tallied in the second half to seal the win for st. louis.
Throughout the club’s history, Sporting has gone 20-9-10 against teams in the midst of their expansion season and have gone 13-3-1 in their first-ever home match against expansion teams - only falling to Houston Dynamo FC (2006), Seattle Sounders FC (2009) and CF Montreal (2012).
3. THOMMY CAPS RECORD-PASSING SEQUENCE
Sporting Kansas City midfielder Erik Thommy sealed a comfortable victory for the club by scoring the third and final goal of the team’s 3-0 win over the San Jose Earthquakes on Saturday night at Children’s Mercy Park.
The goal capped a 38-pass sequence, tied for the longest passing sequence leading to a goal in MLS since Opta began tracking that information in 2010. In fact, Sporting is responsible for five of the top seven passing sequences leading to goals. Prior to Saturday, no team had recorded two goals in a single match with build-ups of 20 passes, yet Sporting’s second and third goals contained 32 and 38 passes, respectively.
Date | Player | Team | Opposition | Passes |
08/26/2023 | Erik Thommy | Sporting KC | San Jose Earthquakes | 38 |
10/23/2021 | Johnny Russell | Sporting KC | Seattle Sounders | 38 |
03/17/2018 | Josef Martinez | Atlanta United | Vancouver Whitecaps | 33 |
08/26/2023 | Johnny Russell | Sporting KC | San Jose Earthquakes | 32 |
07/12/2023 | Johnny Russell | Sporting KC | Real Salt Lake | 32 |
10/15/2017 | Diego Fagundez | New England Revolution | New York City FC | 30 |
03/06/2016 | Nuno Coelho | Sporting KC | Seattle Sounders | 30 |
4. RUSSELL GUTS OUT BRILLIANT DISPLAY vs. SAN JOSE
Sporting Kansas City captain gutted out a man of the match display during Sporting’s 3-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes at Children’s Mercy Park last Saturday. Russell tallied the game-winning assist on Daniel Salloi’s goal before bagging a goal of his own with a brilliant solo effort just before halftime.
Minutes after setting up Salloi in the third minute, Russell rolled his ankle while dribbling toward goal and received a lengthy period of treatment before electing to soldier on. Clearly impacted by the injury, Russell fought through the pain barrier to cause the ‘Quakes all sorts of problems, culminating in his goal in the 42nd minute.
The club captain, officially questionable for Saturday’s match vs. st. louis with an ankle injury, reached a major milestone with his pair of goal contributions last weekend as he became just the third player in club history to reach 100 combined goals (58) and assists (42) - only trailing icons Preki (185) and Graham Zusi (125).
5. SALLOI NOTCHES YET ANOTHER GAME-WINNER
Sporting Kansas City forward Daniel Salloi scored the opening goal as Sporting cruised to a 3-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes at Children’s Mercy Park last Saturday night. Salloi bagged his sixth of the year in MLS play and seventh across all competitions by converting Johnny Russell’s cross from the right wing.
With his goal standing as the game-winner, Salloi now has a team-leading three game-winning goals in 2023 (four in all competitions), and extended his lead atop the club’s all-time game-winning goal charts with 16 - three more than any other player in Kansas City history.
Salloi’s goal was his 44th for the club in MLS regular-season play, breaking a tie with Sporting Legends Davy Arnaud and Josh Wolff for fourth in club history. Across all competitions, Salloi has now tallied 55 goals and 31 assists in 202 matches for Sporting.
