Chicago is in town for another Fri night game. Given the nat'l tv audience, Chicago's desire to bring flags, and LSP's stadium rules, lets hope all supporters take the time to review their spelling. Chicago has won 7 of their last 8, despite no shutouts in their last 10 matches. KC's last opponent, Montreal, lost 3-1, Sept. 15, at Toyota Park Landfill. Per James' stats, during MLS regular season play, KC is a woeful 10 Wins, 22 Loses, 10 Draws, with a -30 GD v. Chi. In June, we ran around like madmen in 100 degree heat, firing 27 shots, owning over 60% possession -- none of which did us any good. A tie will feel like a loss. Chi trail us by 2 points, with a game in-hand (though currently even on points-per-game, 1.83). That said, KC are +4 on Chi in terms of overall GD; however, if we cant beat them this season, I have hard time believing we deserve to top them in the table.
We have yet to beat Chicago in Kansas, we have drawn/loss all games at Cab and LSP, we also lost a USOC game at BVDAC. Last win at home against Chicago was 2007!
I don't want to sound like I'm okay with a tie, nor do I want to sound like I've given up on the SS, but with the way the playoffs are structured a point wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Winning the SS would be nice and I'd love love love to have three back to back Eastern titles, but more than a little of what I'm concerned about is not picking up any more injuries or lengthy suspenions and absolutely not finishing in fourth or fifth. A point puts us six clear of DC, but it sucks that they've got the tiebreaker on us... edit - upon further thinking, this sort of is must win if we want to control our own destiny. We need 8 more points this year to lock up a 1 -3 spot. Two home games seem like they'd be the most winnable. Still not terrible to draw, but then either Columbus away or New York away become must wins...
I'm extremely nervous about this game. A win could mean leading the East as well as a possible shot at SS. A loss would almost certainly knock us out of the race for SS and will also hurt us by not having home field advantage for the playoffs.
Playoffs are two game series this year, so it would only hurt us in the sense we wouldn't host the Cup game, which would be not cool, but acceptable given how good SJ is playing. The play in games at 4 and 5 are what scare me most...
If we don't win the SS which doesn't look likely, I almost care more about having more points than the second team in the West than winning the East. SJ has been playing great, but I can see their knack of late game heroics not kicking in during one of the playoff games and being knocked out. The only nice thing about winning the East is it gurantees if we go to OT/PK's before the final we are hosting them.
This should be encouraging, since SKC is 16-3-4 overall and 8-1-2 at home when scoring at least one goal; except that Chicago has been to LSP twice and has yet to give up a goal there. Which, unfortunately, is irrelevant since goals scored is the first tiebreaker--and Chicago is 5 ahead of SKC in that department.
Agreed; the magic number for that outcome is now 9. SKC has the best away record in MLS this year, and their home-field advantage has not been overwhelming, so it should not make much difference in a two-leg series which venue comes first. Still, it would be nice to start on the road and hopefully get a win, which would force the opponent to make a legitimate effort to score at LSP.
A draw is absolutely not acceptable here. A draw means that Chicago is still two points behind us with a game in hand. This is, quite frankly, the biggest must win game of the rest of the regular season.
Totally winnable. If we take our chances like we did in NY we win 2 or 3 to nil. We had plenty of chances their first time to LSP this year but we just didn't put them away. That CJ and Kei put away those chances as well as they did in NY is promising. We just have to hope that Sean Johnson plays more like he did in the first half vs. Philly last Thurs than he did against us in LSP earlier.
http://www.chicago-fire.com/blog/post/2012/09/24/playoff-math-introducing-magic-number Good info here, we can clinch a playoff spot with a win as it'll put us over Columbus' max points of 57. It'll also mean 1 more point gained after that, or one point dropped by Houston and we can clinch a top 3 spot and avoid the play in game.
Realized I screwed this up. a win and dropped points by Houston and we're guaranteed a top 4 spot. Meaning a playin game would be at LSP.
SKC's magic number to clinch a top-three spot is now 8; i.e., the sum of points gained by SKC and dropped by either New York or DC. So it will not happen this weekend.
I sort of selectively forgot about extra time and penalties and how homefield advantage would work... You know will be sort of nice going into this match? A rested Roger and Collin. I'd really like to see Bobby Convey finishing the season match fit... God I think we'll miss him in the postseason, even if we seem to have found our early season form without him.
I'd like to see Bobby Convey again, period. I'm really frustrated with the whole thing b/c I wasn't sold on him at first and then I finally came around and then he was gone. I think Seth played his best with Convey in... and I haven't really seen much from Seth in recent games - nothing bad, but he hasn't been contributing much going forward either. I wouldn't mind seeing Markovic getting some time in these last few games, I really liked what I saw from him vs. DC. Perhaps a late sub if we're needing something different... and maybe some more significant minutes v Philly or something.
Since you brought him up . . . http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...ey-hopes-contribute-after-rough-first-year-kc
Convey not on the recent injury report (though, I cannot specifically remember whether he has been on the official report all the time or not). SPORTING KANSAS CITY -- OUT: FW Teal Bunbury (L knee ACL tear); DF Cyprian Hedrick (L fibula fracture); QUESTIONABLE: MF Paulo Nagamura (R foot contusion) CHICAGO FIRE -- OUT: DF Cory Gibbs (R knee meniscus repair); QUESTIONABLE: MF Pavel Pardo (L calf tightness)
give it one game. yeah, i'm quite cynical about it. at this point, anything he contributes should be considered a bonus, since we've basically been w/out him for most of the season. my concern, however, is that he's going to be taking up a critical place on the field while not being game fit ... essentially becoming a detriment instead of a positive contributor.
IMO we've had a big hole in his position that we've been trying to fill. If Peterson is healthy, then I could see your argument, but I'm still not sold on sticking Zusi up there and having Nagamura start in the midfield. I'd rather see Zusi back in the midfield, Convey/Peterson up top, and Nagamura on the bench.
Unfortunately no Jake for this one, therefore I think we see Zusi back up top again with Roger's return. Gotta score early in this one, especially since we haven't scored against them yet at LSP. I actually have a good feeling about this one. I was more worried about the NY game. Fresh Roger and Collin, hyped up crowd, playoff spot can be clinched. The scary part is how we play on national TV...
Raise your hand if you knew Cory Gibbs was still in the league. Yeah, didn't think so. Did anyone ever hear why Collin wasn't in the 18 vs Montreal? Just gave him a rest? Hope it wasn't anything more than that.
Id rule out injury, at the least. His facebook said something about salsa dancing the other night. Assuming you dont salsa dance if you are injured, Im thinking we'll see the popped collar Fri for sure. Of course, this is Collin we're talking about, so expecting anything is a highly flawed way of thinking.