Sporting Kansas City vs. St. Louis CITY SC
2024 MLS Regular Season | Match 9
Saturday, April 20 | 7:30 p.m. CT (7:40 kickoff)
Children's Mercy Park | Kansas City, Kansas
Broadcast Schedule:
Apple TV | MLS Season Pass
English Radio | Sports Radio 810 WHB
Spanish Radio | La Grande 1340 AM
Tickets | Know Before You Go | 5 Things | By the Numbers | Tune In on Apple TV | Pub Partners | SKC App | MatchCenter
Sporting Kansas City will host St. Louis CITY SC at 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday at Children's Mercy Park as the regional rivals meet for the first time since Sporting swept St. Louis from last year's MLS Cup Playoffs.
Tickets for Saturday's showdown are available online from match title night partner SeatGeek, including standing room only tickets while supplies last, and the highly-anticipated rematch will stream live on Apple TV for MLS Season Pass subscribers. Pub partners in the Sporting Pub Network will also show all of the action and radio coverage will air locally on Sports Radio 810 WHB and La Grande 1340 AM.
For a sixth time in 11 months, Sporting KC and St. Louis CITY SC will go head-to-head as Major League Soccer's newest rivalry has sparked no shortage of memorable moments in its nascency. Sporting earned 2-1 wins in both match-ups at Children's Mercy Park last season, highlighted by a humbling upset of top-seeded St. Louis in the Round One Best-of-3 postseason series that - coupled with an emphatic 4-1 victory at St. Louis in Game 1 -- ended the expansion side's inaugural campaign.
Sporting winger Daniel Salloi tallied two goals and four assists against St. Louis last season, while fellow forward Alan Pulido also contributed two goals and three assists across the five previous meetings. The dynamic duo are joined in the attack by a pair of players coming off two-goal performances in the past two weeks as Willy Agada struck twice in a 3-3 draw against the Portland Timbers on April 7 and Erik Thommy bagged a brace in the team's 3-2 loss to Inter Miami CF last weekend.
Agada now has 12 goals in 11 career regular season starts at Children's Mercy Park since joining the club in 2022. The 24-year-old Nigerian will look to continue his run of form for an SKC side that has scored multiple goals in five straight regular season matches for the first time since June 2000 and that has trailed the least (43 minutes) of any MLS team this season.
Dating back to last April, Sporting is 10-0-3 in matches following losses across all competitions and Manager Peter Vermes' squad will look to bounce back once more on Saturday against a St. Louis side that has lost only once through eight matches this year (2-1-5). The club's league-high five draws equal the team's total from the 2023 season (17-12-5) when St. Louis became the first expansion team in league history to finish atop their conference in the regular season standings.
In 2024, St. Louis is anchored by goalkeeper Roman Burki - who leads all MLS goalkeepers with three shutouts -- and a defense that has conceded a league-low 24 shots on target en route to back-to-back clean sheets in the last two weeks. Offensively, midfielder Eduard Lowen -- who led the team in assists (14) and goal contributions (20) a year ago -- started the season strong with a goal or assist in each of the club's first three games before missing the last five matches due to injury.
Two-time MLS Referee of the Year Allen Chapman will be Saturday's match official as MLS will debut the Off-Field Treatment and Timed Substitution rules this weekend. In addition, all VAR decisions will be explained and announced by the referee to fans watching in stadium and via live broadcast.
