Advertisement

Think Sporting KC’s game against FC Dallas will be an easy win Wednesday? Think again

Sporting Kansas City has lost just six regular-season games this season. None of those losses have come back-to-back.

But that streak will be tested as Kansas City looks to rebound from last weekend’s loss to the Seattle Sounders with a result at FC Dallas Wednesday evening.

On paper, Dallas shouldn’t pose too much of a threat to Sporting KC. Mired in 11th place in the Western Conference (leading only Texas’ other two MLS teams, Houston and Austin), Dallas has conceded a conference-high 44 goals and just fired its head coach, Luchi Gonzalez, after nearly four seasons at the helm.

But this is Major League Soccer. Nothing is that simple.

Sporting KC always seems to have a tough time against “The Burn” — an homage to the club’s original name, the Dallas Burn.

KC managed to defeat Dallas at Wednesday’s venue, Toyota Stadium, earlier this season by a score of 2-0. Before that, Dallas had defeated Sporting fives times out of six, dating to a KC win in October 2018. The odd game out finished in a 1-1 tie in September 2020.

Since Major League Soccer’s inaugural 1996 season, Sporting KC is 13-14-7 against Dallas in all competitions.

“Every time we play Dallas it’s always a really, really tough game,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said Tuesday.

Admittedly, Dallas is currently in the midst of its worse season since 2013, when it finished eighth in a nine-team Western Conference.

But Kansas City’s August 2-0 victory over Dallas certainly didn’t come easily. Playing in the Texas heat, Dallas kicked and slashed away at Sporting KC’s players, prompting a lengthy amount of stoppage time ... and the ire of Vermes.

But this time around, Vermes is expecting something a little different. He just doesn’t know what it is yet.

Dallas fired Gonzalez Sept. 19 and has played just once since, losing 1-0 to the surging Vancouver Whitecaps.

Native Texan Marco Ferruzzi has taken over as interim head coach for the second time in his career. The first was all the way back in 2008, when he stepped in for Dallas following the firing of Steve Morrow.

“If there’s one thing he does, it’s getting his teams ready to play,” Vermes said of Ferruzzi. “I expect that from him, and a lot of it has to do with because he’s been with the club for a long time and he bleeds their colors. I’m sure he expects those guys to represent the club in a very meaningful way.”

FC Dallas’ young American trio of Ricardo Pepi, Paxton Pomykal and Jesús Ferreira has combined for 19 goals and 11 assists this season. Pomykal and Ferreira scored in Dallas’ 2-1 win over Sporting KC on July 31.

“They have very good and (have) young talent up top, so we’ll for sure have a difficult time,” Sporting KC defender Andreu Fontas said. “They are high-quality players and they can change the game in every single play, so we’ll have to be very careful.”

Vermes didn’t have much to say about Sporting’s ability to bounce back following Sunday’s loss to Seattle. But Fontas added a bit of context to how Sporting hopes to come out against Dallas’ high-flying front line.

“We think that we have to come back stronger and prove that the result that we just had, that it’s just a bad day and we want to win again and as soon as possible,” Fontas said.

“After the Seattle loss, obviously playing tomorrow is better than waiting until playing at the weekend, and then we are hungry to still prove that we are not done,” he continued. “That we will fight for first place of the West.”