Channel 5 Kansas City

Sporting Kansas City Prepares For Road Clash With Philadelphia

Suddenly one of the hottest teams in MLS, Sporting Kansas City travels to Philadelphia to take on the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. CT from PPL Park. The match will be broadcast live on KSMO-TV, with coverage beginning at 6:00 p.m.

While Sporting Kansas City enter Wednesday’s match unbeaten in their last five matches, Philadelphia boast one of the league’s best records at home and have yet to lose a match at PPL Park so far in 2011.

Sporting Kansas City got the better of the expansion Union in 2010, taking four points from a possible six during the regular season. The first-ever match between the two clubs, June 10th at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, saw Sporting run out 2-0 winners courtesy of goals from Kei Kamara and Graham Zusi. Zusi’s goal was the first of his career for Sporting Kansas City. The two sides met again on September 4th, this time at PPL Park, and played to a 1-1 draw. Sporting KC captain Davy Arnaud scored on a free kick from a tight angle to steal a point for the visitors following a first half strike from Sebastian Le Toux.

Sporting Kansas City will be without midfielder Craig Rocastle due to a right knee sprain suffered while playing for Grenada in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Honduras has advanced to the semifinals of the tournament, meaning that Sporting Kansas City defender Roger Espinoza will also not be available for Wednesday’s match. Espinoza started and played 80 minutes in Los Catrachos’ penalty shootout victory over Costa Rica in the quarterfinals.

Sporting Kansas City's lineup will also be without central defender Aurelien Collin, who will serve a mandatory one-game suspension for caution accumulation. The club also announced on Tuesday that winger Ryan Smith will miss the rest of the 2011 season due to family reasons.

The Union (6-4-4), currently sitting in second place in the Eastern Conference, enter Wednesday night’s contest coming off of a 1-0 loss away to Vancouver Whitecaps FC over the weekend at Empire Field. Through seven matches at home, however, Philadelphia has yet to lose. Manager Peter Nowak’s side could also receive an additional boost from the possible return of forward Carlos Ruiz, who has come back from Gold Cup duty following Guatemala’s elimination from the tournament.

KSMO-TV will again air a 30-minute pre-game show hosted by play-by-play announcer Callum Williams, in addition to their weekly soccer show, ‘Off the Pitch’ with Sporting Kansas City, on Sunday at 9:30 p.m. CT.

MLS Pick'Em – Week 15 « Avoiding the Drop

Last week saw ten Major League Soccer games throughout the week, plus a number of CONCACAF Gold Cup matches as well. Everyone got one pick correct this time around as all of us correctly predicted the USA win over Guadeloupe. In addition, there were four who got 5 out of 10 MLS games correct: Kevin, Bluesfan, Fuse, and Sculptor . Congratulations to all of them. Read on to get other results and see what’s in store for Week 15 of Major League Soccer.

WEEK 15 GAMES

Week 15 will give us twelve Major League Soccer matches and three Gold Cup matches as well. That’s 15 matches and as an added bonus, SEVEN of them will be on national television. So settle down on the couch with your favorite drink and a bag of chips because there is lots of soccer on the television this weekend.  ESPN moves its love from Los Angeles to New York this week, and two different Spanish language channels will be broadcasting games as well. With the wrap up the Gold Cup this week, there are seven bonus points available: one point for the correct winner of each of the semi-finals; then one point for the winner of the Final and three points for the score of the Final.

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