Top 5 ranked Kansas City Roos return home to face UMass

The Kansas City Men’s Soccer team returns home to face Summit League foe University of Massachusetts on Sunday. The Roos will honor their senior players at 11:45 before a noon kickoff at Durwood Soccer Stadium on the UMKC campus.

The Roos enter the match with a 3-0 record in conference and 10-2-2 record overall and are ranked fifth in the nation. Head Coach Ryan Pore has his team positioned well nationally and will hope to secure two more results to wrap up conference play before the postseason. If the Roos win the Summit League, they would host the conference tournament.

“We feel really good about where we stand,” Coach Ryan Pore stated this week. “We just had three straight away games, two trips to the East Coast, and came away with two good wins. One against a good Penn team. Then in a conference game, Delaware, who were desperate for points, we were able to kind of close the door on them.”

On that road trip, the Roos suffered one of their two defeats for the season. It was a game where they slipped early and were punished chasing an equalizer.

“The result against NC State, I think that game was maybe a little bit closer than the score indicated, but it was also a good reset for us too,” Pore explained. “It humbled us a little bit and got us back to some of the work that we need to do and some of the details that have made us get this far. But I’m really happy with the last couple of weeks and where we’re at in conference moving forward.”

The Roos scheduled one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the nation. By RPI Rankings, UMKC has played the 4^th hardest non-conference opponents in college soccer. The difficult opponents and consistent results against other top-ranked teams have kept Kansas City near the top all season.

“I’m certainly proud (of his team),” Pore stated. “We want to consistently be a top 25 team. Obviously, we’re up there now, top five. But the guys deserve it. I think the results have proven themselves and we’ve proven ourselves all year. So we had the loss against San Francisco. I think we then go on a seven or eight game unbeaten streak. And my hope is we do the same after the NC State game.”

The Roos are in first but face the next two teams below them to round out league play. Kansas City has nine points, Sunday’s opponent UMass has 4 and next weekends opponent Omaha has seven.

The winner of the Summit League conference plays host to the tournament, and Pore is hoping to have that home field advantage. “Very important, we want the conference tournament here in Durwood, and we want more home games. We’re really good at home. We’ve had great support at home. So I think it’s really important to us. It’s a goal that we had set out before the season started.”

Challenges along the way

The two scoring leaders for the Roos in 2025 have missed games this season for different reasons. Jeremy Francou led Kansas City last season with 11 goals and 3 assists, but this year he has missed most of their games. An early hamstring kept him out of the lineup until recently, but is now available.

Raphael Kistmann has missed several games due to eligibility issues with the NCAA’s inconsistent application of rules. Court rulings would allow him to play, and then a different challenge would stop him, keeping the talented midfielder and players across the country in a constant state of uncertainty. Despite the consistent worry, Kistmann has still managed to lead Kansas City with six goals and three assists.

The legal battles are now settled, and Kistmann is happy about that. “It was not easy. But the team was all behind me. They were giving me strength to come here every day to practice with them. The coaches was every time with positive attitude, was always supporting me. So I think that’s what made me come back every day stronger and to go through this phase,” Kistmann explained.

For coach Pore, he has juggled players missing and facing top opponents and is understandably pleased to have his players available.

“Rapha (Kistmann) scored goals all year, and it’s good to actually have steady games for him and Jeremy’s back to being the finished version himself. I think he’ll feature in the starting lineup on Sunday. So that would be good to play from the start with Jeremy. I think having those guys back is the best version of the Roos and we need all three of them, especially Mariano (Buenza) as well. Looking forward to those guys being able to share some minutes, but also score some goals for us.”