Sporting KC v Colorado Rapids Preview: Do or Die Time

Sporting KC vs Colorado Rapids

When: Wednesday, September 18th, 2024, at 7:30 PM CT (7:40 kickoff)

Where: Children’s Mercy Park

How to Watch/Stream: Apple MLS Season Pass

Three and a half months ago, the KC Soccer Journal went through an exercise to see what the math was around Sporting Kansas City making the playoffs. We set the mark at 44 points. The way the season is playing out, that may not even be good enough and Sporting KC can no longer even hit that total.

Minnesota United, who come to town on the weekend after this Colorado Rapids game, currently have 39 points with six games to play. Sporting KC sit on just 28 points with five games to play. That means the maximum points SKC can get is just 43. Outside of their game against St. Louis City, MNUFC only play teams ahead of them. So, it’s possible they can falter enough for Sporting KC to catch them.

The thing is, Sporting KC almost certainly need to win all their games. Losing against the Colorado Rapids won’t mathematically eliminate them yet, but basically, they’ll be done. Minnesota have won back-to-back games after winning just one of their previous 11 league games. The 12th game? Sporting KC, a 3-1 MNUFC win.

It’s do or die time. Frankly, it’s well past that point, but anymore dropped points almost certainly dooms Kansas City.

Kansas City’s Form

• August 9th @ Columbus Crew (Leagues Cup) – 0-4 Loss
• August 24th vs. Orlando City – 3-0 Win
• August 27th vs. Indy Eleven (US Open) – 2-0 Win
• Sept. 7th @ New York Red Bulls – 1-1 Draw
• Sept. 15th @ Seattle Sounders – 0-2 Loss

Colorado’s Recent Form

• August 17th @ Club America (Neutral site, Leagues Cup) 0-0 Draw, PK Win
• August 21st @ LAFC (Leagues Cup) 0-4 Loss
• August 25th @ Philadelphia Union (Leagues Cup, 3rd Place) 2-2 Draw, PK Win
• August 31st @ FC Dallas – 3-2 Win
• Sept. 14th vs. Portland Timbers – 2-1 Win

Colorado have lost just one of their last eight games. Sporting KC have their hands full.

Injury/Availability Report

Official injury reports aren’t available until matchday minus one in the late afternoon/early evening, so here are last week’s report for Colorado (plus the red card they got) as we wait for today’s news. SKC’s report is accurate.

Sporting KC:

• OUT – Nemanja Radoja (groin), Jake Davis (yellow/red cards)
• QUESTIONABLE – Joaquin Fernandez (groin)

Joaquin Fernandez is fully in training today. A good sign for his future involvement. #SportingKC

— Daniel Sperry (@sperrydaniel94) September 17, 2024

Colorado:

• OUT – Kevin Cabral (elbow), Sam Vines (hamstring), Darren Yapi (red card), Lalas Abubakar (concussion)
• QUESTIONABLE – None

Predictions

Sporting KC are struggling to keep the ball out of the net.

As per @j_clem's request, MLS shot prevention by team ⬇️

Defenses that limit their opponent's chances will be in the bottom left, whereas defenses that fail to prevent good chances will be in the top right. How does your team stack up?

Data: @fbref, insp: @DataAnalyticEPL pic.twitter.com/ycxkUjGD0a

— MLS Statistics and Analysis 📊⚽️ (@mlsstat) September 16, 2024

As you can see in the above Tweet, Sporting Kansas City are worst in the league on expected goals (xG) per shot. And while quite a few teams concede more shots than them, they are still in the worst quadrant. If Joaquin Fernandez can play on Wednesday, maybe he makes a difference. Maybe not. Perhaps, looking further up the field is necessary.

Jake Davis was suspended for the Seattle Sounders game and Seattle had an astonishing xG of 2.7 on Sunday. Seattle actually underperformed their metrics. With no Davis in the double pivot and no Radoja at defensive midfielder as he continues to be hampered by injuries, Kansas City rarely keep a clean sheet. In fact, they have just three shutouts all year in MLS play.

Couple that with an inconsistent attack and you have a recipe for disaster. SKC’s four highest paid attackers have combined for 16 of KC’s 45 league goals (Pulido 5, Thommy 5, Russel 4, Salloi 2). Those four players account for over $7 million in guaranteed compensation. That’s a little under half a million per goal. Until the highest paid players perform at something close to their contract value, Sporting KC won’t be winning much of anything.

They may sneak past the Colorado Rapids. And perhaps past lowly Minnesota United. But the 2024 season is lost, and their goal should be to get ready for next Wednesday against LAFC. The team just embarked on a stretch of 11 days where they will play four times culminating in that US Open Cup final. Give up on the 2024 playoffs. They are nearly impossible to attain. Do whatever you need to do to win a trophy in Los Angeles next week.

Let’s just get it over with and rest the starters (whoever they are) on Saturday against Minnesota. Winning Wednesday may just cause the team to grind everyone into dust before the USOC final.

PREDICTION: 1-1 Draw