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Sporting KC v St Louis City (Game One): Playoff Preview & Predictions

It’s the first of three potential games between Sporting KC and St. Louis City SC in the 2023 MLS Playoffs. Let us get you ready!

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2 years ago

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Credit: Thad Bell

Sporting KC @ St. Louis City SC

When: Sunday, October 29, 2023 at 9:00 PM CT (9:25 kickoff)

Where: CITYPARK

How to Watch/Stream: Apple MLS Season Pass
NOTE: Game one is free, two and three are behind the paywall

Somehow, despite all the odds, Sporting Kansas City are alive and well and moving on in the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs. They’ve overcome the worst start in MLS history that later ended with a team making the (expanded) playoffs. They’ve essentially been playing soccer for at least the last few weeks, and it could be argued for longer than that. They were in do-or-die situations against Real Salt Lake (on the road) and Minnesota United and they got the job done.

They played in the newly formed Wild Card round against the San Jose Earthquakes and they won a penalty kick shootout to advance. Their reward? A potential three-game series with cross-state rivals St. Louis City SC. The one seed versus the eight seed. And no one outside of the team and it’s fan base, seemingly believes in them.

And why would they? In three previous meetings, Sporting KC have absolutely struggled against their new rival. Speaking of those prior three meetings, the home team is undefeated. If it was an aggregate goal series, St. Louis is up 9-3 overall and 8-1 at home. Let us remind you of our immediate, emotional reactions:

Seemingly, the pressure is all on St. Louis. They are the one seed. They dominated Kansas City in both their wins and hung close in their lone loss. After the Earthquakes game, Daniel Salloi echoed the same sentiment.

“For 10 games we couldn’t win a game and now we’re playing St. Louis in the playoffs conference semifinal,” started Salloi. “This is insane. I think, there is not really pressure on us. We shouldn’t be there, in terms of the way we started. We shouldn’t be there. But we’re there.”

St. Louis City’s Recent Form

  • Sept 20th vs. LAFC – 0-0 Draw
  • Sept 23rd @ Minnesota United – 2-1 Win
  • Sept 30th vs. Sporting KC – 4-1 Win
  • Oct 4th @ Vancouver Whitecaps – 0-3 Loss
  • Oct 21st vs. Seattle Sounders – 0-2 Loss

If we stretch it back further, St. Louis are just 2-3-3 in their last eight. When that’s compared to Sporting KC, the eight seed has been playing a bit better. Not counting the playoffs, SKC are 5-3-0. Adding in the San Jose game, that’s technically a draw that was won in penalty kicks. But it can’t be ignored, one of those three losses is to St. Louis. Then again, one of the five wins is against St. Louis.

What’s new for St. Louis?

Nothing. The last meeting between these clubs was after the roster freeze date.

IN: None

OUT: None

Injury/Availability Report

This section will be updated, again. At 5:30 on Friday the injury report for KC was added. I still haven’t seen the St. Louis report.

Sporting KC:

St. Louis:

  • OUT – None
  • QUESTIONABLE – None

Suspensions

Yellow card accumulation in the 2023 playoffs is three cards to lead to a suspension. The cards reset in the conference finals.

Sporting KC: None

  • Suspended Next Yellow Card: None
  • Total Yellow Cards: Andreu Fontas (1)

On the first I swear Davis was called, but the record books say Fontas.

St. Louis: None

  • Suspended Next Yellow Card: None
  • Total Yellow Cards: None

Stats

Sporting KC

Goals: Alan Pulido (14), Johnny Russell (8), Daniel Salloi (7), Erik Thommy (5), Gadi Kinda, Willy Agada (3), Dany Rosero, Remi Walter (2), Felipe Hernandez, Robert Castellanos, Khiry Shelton (1)

Assists: Erik Thommy (11), Daniel Salloi (9), Gadi Kinda, Remi Walter (4), Tim Leibold, Alan Pulido, Johnny Russell, Nemanja Radoja (3), Jake Davis, Roger Espinoza (2), Marinos Tzionis, Graham Zusi, Andreu Fontas, Robert Voloder, Logan Ndenbe (1)

St. Louis

Goals: Joao Klauss, Niko Gioacchini (10), Sam Adeniran (8), Eduard Lowen (6), Jared Stroud (5), Tim Parker (4), Rasmus Alm, Tomas Ostrak (3), Kyle Hiebert, Indiana Vassilev (2), six with one (1)

Assists: Lowen (14), Stroud, Vassilev (5), Alm, Klauss, Aziel Jackson, (4), Jake Nerwinski, Ostrak, Celio Pompeu (2), seven with one (1)

Referee Assignment

REF: Ted Unkel
AR1: Cory Richardson
AR2: Ryan Graves
4TH: Sergii Boiko
VAR: Daniel Radford
AVAR: Kyle Atkins

Predictions

It’s hard not to look at the past and project it onto the future. St. Louis City are 2-0-0 against Kansas City at CITYPARK. And it wasn’t really close. SKC lost by a cumulative 8-1 score over those two games. I’d argue, the first game on short rest should have a bit of an asterisk on it. Chris Penso officiated an absolutely terrible game and had an outsized impact on the final result. Then again, SKC will again enter this game on short rest. And deservedly so, the team with the first-place finish should have an advantage.

Speaking of short rest games, Sporting KC have been pretty bad. A few weeks ago, they were 2-7-4, but they’ve won* two straight short rest games (*technically the San Jose game is a draw, but they won in PKs to advance).

In the second regular season game on the road at St. Louis, Sporting KC still lost 4-1 and it’s hard to argue it’s anyone’s fault but their own (though there were some questionable non-calls). It was a really close game until it wasn’t. Kansas City competed well and then over 12 minutes they melted down. STL grinded KC to dust, and then it looked like they quit.

Sporting Kansas City were looking a little fatigued by the end of the San Jose game. With just three days between games, I’d hope Peter Vermes doesn’t run out the same lineup for a third time in nine days. Instead, I’d like to see some rotation and some tactical changes by perhaps playing against the ball. SKC’s traditional style hasn’t worked against St. Louis. However, I suspect Peter Vermes will play a similar lineup and the game has the potential to get out of hand.

With it being the playoffs, I’ll assume everything tightens up a bit. KC are absolutely capable of beating their rivals, and we’ve been saying all year St. Louis need to come back down to earth.

And if SKC can get to penalty kicks, anything can happen. Tim Melia is a brick wall in net and is one of, if not, the best PK stoppers in MLS history. On the other side, Roman Burki has been the best keeper in MLS this year. But in regular season play, he doesn’t stop PKs. It’s a little better in shootouts.

After Sunday, it’s basically a week between games the rest of the way, so no need to panic.

PREDICTION: 2-1 St. Louis Win

Related Topics:

Since 2014, Chad Smith has been deeply involved in covering Kansas City soccer. He's written about Sporting KC, the KC Current and SKC II for numerous platforms, including The Blue Testament, which was the precursor to the KC Soccer Journal. While his initial connection to Sporting KC was established in Phoenix covering preseason, he now resides in the Kansas City area, offering thorough analysis and a strong commitment to local soccer.

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Kat

It’s so quiet over here! Where is everyone?!?

While the new playoff format is really ridiculous, personally, I am thrilled to finally have a full schedule of games that don’t overlap so I can watch every thing live on both sides of the bracket without missing out. Apple already screwed the pooch with overlapping matches all season, so the late start times and the last minute scramble to release the playoff schedule was hardly surprising. Looking forward to seeing how these aspects are improved in 2024.

Wasn’t super impressed with the team against SJ, I know fatigue was a big factor but that certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence for Sunday. Even in the expanded format where everybody makes the playoffs (😉), I’m happy they made it and advanced. I’ve been trying to think about what I personally would consider a successful run in the STL series, and it all hinges on them winning game 2. That means they force game three, or they miraculously do it in two. Based on both the number of guys with lingering knocks and general squad fatigue, my expectations are low for Sunday. I think there needs to be some rotation Sunday, but why take advantage of the flexibility in a best-of-three game series when you can bend your players to see if they break instead?

Still, I’m pleasantly surprised by the last several weeks and happy to see what they can pull off. Again, this playoff format is really dumb, but if I get to watch Sporting 2-3 more times at least? I’ll take it.

Last edited 2 years ago by Kat
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Chad Smith

Good to see you Kat. Great comments, as usual.

As for where is everyone. We’ve been pondering that too. We wondered how much of it is just lost from TBT to KCSJ? How much of it is a second bad season for SKC (though redemption is on the horizon and traffic has been up this week!). Or how much might just be the ads/comment section on this site.

We don’t pay for our hosting, but the ads go back to our host to offset. It was egregious at a point, and we asked for a reduction in ads, and they obliged. I’m good about just ignoring them, but I know they can be more troublesome depending how you view the site. I’m an old man, I often use a computer versus mobile.

We should probably do a post/survey/something to figure this stuff out. I find just writing time consuming and don’t spend enough time on the “extra” stuff to grow a site.

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KCOutsider

I always use computer, the ads continue to make the site completely unusable on an iPhone. I prefer not to use my phone for internet anyway but still there are times when this is really frustrating (such as the travel experience mentioned in my other comment here).

Leaving the SBN platform (or rather getting dumped from it) was probably always going to result in traffic loss. Frankly, one of the benefits of SBN was its very dynamic commenting system, even if they did make it worse than it used to be. This one is much harder to use, making it much more difficult to track ongoing conversations (whether live or over several hours/days). It’s no worse than most other commenting systems (such as The Athletic’s) but SBN’s approach was so much better than most that it feels like a loss of community when you lose the ability to really converse with people rather than post isolated messages like it’s still 2002.

As for broader disengagement, who knows whether it’s a combination of burnout on the team, not believing yet, lots of other sports stuff happening in the fall…I stand by what I remember commenting a few weeks ago, that all the dynamics that led to major fan protests earlier in the year are still there, and are only temporarily papered over by an 8th place finish that only qualifies as “playoffs” in this diluted year. PV is still being a pompous ass about how reaching 8th place means he “hasn’t forgotten how to coach”. While I’ll happily root for the player on the field and would love an exciting underdog playoff run, I’m not happy with him, ownership, the stadium situation, or the team’s perceived ceiling right now.

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Howlie2

I like the site especially with a computer. It isn’t awesome on a phone, but I still visit it daily on my phone when traveling.

Honestly, I post much less because PV has beaten me into apathy. I love SKC (the team), I despise the club’s direction. I used to have fire and passion when I watched a SKC game…my son and I would discuss needs/changes/exciting roster prospects for hours. I do none of those things any longer. I watch the game expecting someone to get hurt or the team to collapse or PV to simply run another player into the ground.

My wife doesn’t even mind watching SKC with me any longer. I could just as well throw a movie on that I’ve seen 100 times as I would pretty much have the same reactions. When I watch the USMNT, I get all fired up…so the excitement for the game is still there.

I was at the San Jose game Wednesday night with my son, his friend and my dad. We got seats on the 50 yard line 3 rows from the pitch for $70 each (wicked cheap for seats that historically have been impossible for me to get). The stands were maybe 60-70% full. Clearly, I’m not alone in my apathy. This was a playoff game and SKC can’t sell the stadium out…oof dah.

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Chad Smith

The 60-70% was honestly more than I was expecting with it being super late and having rained for 30 hours leading up to the match.

But yeah, it’s the playoffs and it didn’t quite feel like it. That said, those 60-70% were VERY loud. So, shout out to all of them.

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Kat

The community engagement on TBT was the best part of the site, but commenting over here is significantly more laborious.

I’ll be honest… the commenting system is my second biggest reason for not being very present anymore. While I appreciate the recent comments at the bottom of the page, having an indicator of how many comments and if there were new ones on TBT was a fantastic feature. And don’t get me started on not having gifs (personal problem, I know).

I don’t mind the ads, but they cause the page to constantly reload so if I want to comment anything longer than a few lines I have to write it in a separate app (like now). And outside of work I use my phone for everything, so it isn’t practical for me to pull out my laptop to use a single website. Especially for something like a match thread; a laptop would really cramp my lounging around time.

Now that I’m thinking about all of this, I think this the first website/app/technical thing I use frequently that went through a major change I haven’t been able to adapt to. For example, I don’t always like a lot of changes instagram makes, but I still adapt and keep using it. Here, it’s a lot of work to keep up and engage… I have to click on each of the last several articles to double check if there are new comments.

I also don’t like the downvoting; I’m all for disagreeing but I’d rather participate in or read a dialogue.

That being said, I do still enjoy the articles and appreciate all the work you all do! I understand that having to transition wasn’t easy, and am very grateful KCSJ is here. If you guys need any dev help or ideas for widening your audience/SM presence let me know!

ETA: I posted this and have spent the last few minutes with the page reloading multiple times so I can’t respond to other comments. Now I’m off to write them in my notes app because I’ll likely lose them otherwise.

Last edited 2 years ago by Kat
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KCOutsider

Hey, how cool to see you! Speaking for myself, I was on a 6-day off-grid canoe trip in Arkansas’s Buffalo River Wilderness, and watched the San Jose game from my iPhone in a rural Arkansas motel after getting off the water. One of the benefits of the universal AppleTV access but it meant I couldn’t join the game thread because (a) I was already streaming the game and (b) this site is completely unusable on my phone as ads block all functionality.

For what it’s worth on STL, their Reddit thread sounds pretty nervous about this matchup. Everything from realizing that SKC have quietly been very good lately (at least statistically, my eye test still doesn’t see it), to worry about their slow slide into mediocrity to end the season, to terror that their whole glorious season could come crumbling down in the worst possible way to lose.

Best case in my mind is the first two games are split with home wins and then who the heck knows what happens in #3. Both teams have cracks and faults, both have reason to consider themselves powerful. I think this is a much closer matchup than 1v8 or the head-to-head outcomes imply.

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Chad Smith

I’m feeling the STL nervousness on Twitter too. A lot of, “we’ve already overachieved, so whatever happens, happens” type mentality.

I keep reminding them that if they lose to the 8 seed, it’ll look very bad. I’m hopeful, but I’m still not convinced that KC are built to beat St. Louis if we keep playing the same style.

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Kat

Hey! I took a longer hiatus than intended. I missed a couple matches after the August break because I was in France and frankly? At that point I didn’t care to watch replays (or watch live to take advantage of Apple) or keep up with team news. Of course, I eventually got sucked back in. It was also a nice break from whoever has it out for me on here. I’ve already gotten a few unsavory messages since posting yesterday. I hadn’t gotten any since August 😕.

I’d love to take out STL, but I’ll just be happy if Sporting goes down swinging and shows some integrity. I do like that Sporting is the underdog with nothing to really lose. Should be a good series!

Last edited 2 years ago by Kat
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KCOutsider

Agree wholly with the last paragraph. And just so sorry you’re still dealing with stalkers. Don’t have strong enough language for that.

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kcrews123

I’ve gotta say that I’m excited, but man, im not ready for STL to pack out OUR stadium. Tons of tickets are available for November 5th, and I’ve been seeing a lot of talk from STL regarding packing out CMP. Meanwhile I think we MIGHT get a couple hundred to travel to STL.

I’m fully expecting to get shredded on Sunday. We’re gassed, on short rest, against one of the top scoring teams, who have only played 1 game since 10/4, who rips us open once they get a goal. My expectations are very low for Sunday.
My hope is that they get fired up enough after Sunday, that the game on the 5th is a rebound, and then surprised STL in the following game

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Chad Smith

The idea of all that reddish-pink filling CMP is very annoying. I’d hope with it being a Sunday afternoon, people would show up. But I also understand if many have tuned out on 2023 because of how things went early. No team should be in the playoffs that started like that and with MLS constantly changing their format/rules, I get that only us sickos can (mostly) keep up with the rule changes.

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KCOutsider

Honestly I suspect that how Game 1 goes will have a significant impact. Another STL blowout and the simmering apathy will manifest. SKC somehow win that one and the narrative of “knock out STL in KC” will definitely draw attention.

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