Preview: SKC heads south to face Austin FC

Sporting Kansas City at Austin FC  
2024 MLS Regular Season Match 13
Saturday, May 18th | 7:30 p.m. CT
Q2 Stadium – Austin, TX
Broadcast: Apple TV
English (Mark Followill and Warren Barton)
Spanish (Raul Guzman and Carlos Ruiz)

Sporting Kansas City heads south to face Austin FC on Saturday evening. It is the first meeting this year between Sporting KC (2-5-5, 11 points, 13th in West | 19 GF, 21 GA) and Austin FC (5-4-4, 19 points,6th in West | 16 GF, 15 GA). Sporting KC have a little more rest with Austin playing midweek in a 1-0 win over Houston.

Historically

The two teams have met seven times with Austin leading the matchup with a 4-2-1 record.

The two teams faced each other twice last year, splitting the difference with each side winning at home. In June SKC took a 4-1 win. After a bad start, Sporting KC was starting to get rolling as their two Designated Players were getting healthy. Pulido notched a brace and an assist while Robert Castellanos and Khiry Shelton both added one.

In July Austin took the win when SKC gave up goals in the 17^th and 19^th minutes. Dany Rosero pulled one back, but Austin held on for the win.

Austin is heavily connected with Sporting KC. Two former Kansas City attackers lead their technical staff with Josh Wolff as Austin’s head coach and Davy Arnaud as his assistant. Dave Tenney is their director of high performance. He was on the Wizards staff under Curt Onalfo.

On the playing side, former SKC forward Diego Rubio joined Austin this season after playing several years for Colorado after leaving Kansas City.

2024

Austin (5-4-4) started a little slow this season, going winless in their first five with three draws and two losses. Since the end of March they have won five of their last eight with a pair of defeats.

Austin’s Argentinian Designated Player Sebastián Driussi leads the club with four goals. Rubio has scored three times and three players with two each.

They are fresh off a 1-0 win over Houston on Wednesday. Driussi scored a late game-winner in the 87^th minute.

Sporting KC (2-5-5) has repeated the early season struggles from 2023 but has yet to bounce back. SKC are winless in their last six league matches with three straight losses. The biggest bright spot was a 2-1 U.S. Open Cup win in Omaha that went 120 minutes.

What will this match look like?

Manager Peter Vermes described Austin as “They’ve been strong defensively.” “They are very clear in how they want to play,” Vermes continued. “They are finding ways to get results.”

Vermes will be looking for his squad to respond after calling his team out for not having the right mentality. Many of their matches have been close with moments where the team shut off or did not put out the effort that Vermes looked for from the players on the field.

Availability

The availability lists were not available yet but Sporting KC will be missing Logan Ndenbe. Vermes stated Dany Rosero and Remi Walter will be questionable but sees them as getting close and could be ready in one of the next couple of games.

Referee: Sergii Boiko

Assistant ref: Jason White

Assistant ref: Nicholas Balcer

4th official: Sergii Demianchuk

VAR: Sorin Stoica