Preview: Sporting KC at Austin FC

Sporting Kansas City at Austin FC
2026 MLS Regular Season | Game 13
Saturday, May 16 | 7:30 p.m. CT (7:40 kickoff)
Q2 Stadium | Austin, Texas

Sporting Kansas City (2-2-8, 8 pts) is back on the road after earning the first home win of 2026 in the midweek win over the LA Galaxy. Sporting KC will be looking to earn back-to-back results for the first time this season when they travel to Texas to face Austin FC (3-5-5, 14 pts) at 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday at Q2 Stadium. Austin is also a team that is struggling but SKC has never earned a point there, losing five straight at Austin.

SKC head coach Raphael Wicky’s squad will be playing their third game in eight days, but they should be at their peak in confidence. The team earned their second win of the season (both versus the Galaxy), a 3-1 result that was the most complete performance of the season. Capita Capemba and Calvin Harris both scored their first goals for the club and Dejan Joveljic notched his sixth. Harris had two assists as he and Capita used their speed to menace the Galaxy. The defence fought hard and only gave up a late goal that was a tremendous strike. It was an excellent bounce back after an embarrassing result on the road at Portland in the previous match.

Kansas City was successful against LA by pressuring and being aggressive. “Given what we know we are capable of, we got back to what we talked about, being bold, being audacious, being brave, showing character, on and off the ball. We showed what can happen when we do that,” Stefan Cleveland described SKC’s effort versus LA.

Austin is the team that will be looking to bounce back after a bad loss on the road. Austin fell 5-0 at San Diego on Wednesday and their head coach Nico Estévez, will be happy to be home where they are 3-2-1 with a positive goal differential. Austin’s only loss at home was against the Galaxy on April 11th.

Familiar faces

Stefan Cleveland came to Sporting KC from Austin and is familiar with the team and city. Cleveland has made three straight starts and is 1-1-1 in those matches.

Austin assistant coach Davy Arnaud played 10 years for Kansas City and is a Sporting Legend. Midfielder Ilie Sanchez played five seasons for Sporting KC from 2017-2021 before moving on to LAFC and now Austin.

Availability