Sporting KC
Sporting KC vs. Houston Dynamo Date and Time Announced
Sporting Kansas City hit the road to face the Houston Dynamo in the conference semifinals on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
Sporting Kansas City have been waiting. They were one of the first teams in the 2023 MLS Cup Playoffs to sweep their opponent and start a very long wait until their Conference Semifinal matchup. As the eight seed, Sporting KC eliminated the first seeded St. Louis City SC to advance after a road win that was quickly followed by a home win to complete the sweep. They had to await their opponent and now are waiting through an international break.
They found out on Saturday that their opponent would be the Houston Dynamo, who defeated Real Salt Lake via penalty kicks in the third game of a three-game series in front of a less than packed house in Texas.
Now, it’s official that Sporting KC will go on the road to Houston on Sunday, November 26th. The broadcast will begin at 6:00 PM CST on FS1, Fox Deportes and TSN. All games are also available on Apple MLS Season Pass.
Sporting KC got the best of the Dynamo in their last meeting. They won 2-1, despite a Johnny Russell red card. That game was in Children’s Mercy Park. The prior meeting this year was in Houston and was a 2-2 draw. The Dynamo did win the other meeting this season in Houston, a 1-0 US Open Cup game back on May 10th when SKC were a far different team. Then again, Houston played less than an ideal lineup.
The winner of this single elimination game will face the winner of the weekend’s final game between LAFC and the Seattle Sounders. Seattle will host LA at 8:30 PM CST that same Sunday ensuring equal rest for all teams involved.
The Eastern Conference games are on Saturday night (November 25th). First, Orlando City will host the winner of the Columbus Crew and Atlanta United three game series at 4:30 PM CST. Then FC Cincinnati will host the Philadelphia Union at 7:00 PM CST.
Stick with the KC Soccer Journal for all things Sporting KC as the playoffs continue.
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Can we start by having Espinoza and HH just slug it out in the middle for a while? Then just play 10v10? I’m really worried about his line busting passes.
It’s kinda fun that SKC are the only lower-than-4-seed left. The rest of the bracket is known top teams, lots of high-power matchups, then us. We’re the only one providing upsets so far.
I’ll say this, I hated the best-of-three opening round when it was announced, but it did achieve one objective this year: helping ensure that the top teams didn’t get knocked out in a random one-off. Now we have a whole slate of juicy top-team matchups with one underdog to keep things spicy.
Underdog?! The team that went 0-7-3 at the beginning of the year is not the team that played the rest of the season. Sure, by seeding we’re the bottom team. But after those first 10 games, we had the most goals and points per game in the western conference. st. louis’s season and performance was exactly like our season but flipped. We proved against them that we are more like the top seed and they were more like the bottom seed.
I totally understand what you’re saying, but the 3 leg series and our performance on the field showed that we’re playing like a top seed, not a scrappy underdog, only the little “8” seed next to us on the bracket says we’re an underdog. But by all means, use that as extra motivation.
We pretty much agree, but I’m not 100% sold. I saw plenty of inconsistency in this team down the stretch, I saw them struggle to get by 9th place San Jose, and I saw them rip apart a team that was probably one of the weaker top seeds in recent memory. I can see lots of weaknesses if I put on my objectivity glasses and I need a longer run than the last two to see this team as more than still a work in progress. Thrilled for the chance to do so, but we’re not a juggernaut.
I’m not sure a lot of teams were extremely consistent down the stretch and we know SKC’s weaknesses better than most. Makes it easy to focus on ours. From here on out it is a crapshoot.
Totally fair. I’m still not sure how Seattle ended up at #2 since they’ve seemed off all year. But I still don’t have a problem seeing SKC as an underdog against most of their prospective opponents, which is how this conversation started.
Hopping in late.
It’s funny that the 3-game series would have had identical results if it was a single elimination. The team that won first, won the series in all 8 instances. Overall, though, I liked the format from a “fun games” perspective. People want these two-legged series with away goals and mostly that makes for boring games. Nashville and Orlando aside, the games were pretty exciting. I’m not sure we needed PK shootouts attached though. And wouldn’t you rather see a 3-game series later on with the best teams left? I’m not sure what the best format is, but with this small sample size, this first round was fun if nothing else.
As for SKC’s chances. I have to put them as underdogs too. But they are a live dog, as I sometimes here the gamblers say. We have to remember they were just 3W-8L-6D this year on the road. And I heard it in the first game against St. Louis, but I can’t recall now. I think they said they’ve only won a couple road playoff games in their entire history. Now they need three more in this year to win MLS Cup. That probably won’t happen, but I’m here for the effort.
PV accidently got hot at the right time. Not an accident in the sense of he doesn’t know what he’s doing, but we all know he’d have grinded the starters into dust if he’d had them all year, but injuries forced enough rotation that they are hot at the right time. It’s the exact recipe for success in single elimination playoffs. Having some home games would be better, but they are capable of beating any of the teams in the West.
True, they are the underdog. They would be just for the fact of being on the road for the next three games.
All of the west has been inconsistent to some degree this year. SKC just way more for the first ten games of course.