CHICAGO FIRE vs. SPORTING KANSAS CITY
TOYOTA STADIUM • Bridgeview, Illinois
July 13, 2016 • Week 19 • MLS Game #185
8:30 pm ET (MLS LIVE, CSN-Chicago)
Long-time Midwestern rivals Chicago Fire and Sporting Kansas City meet for the only time this season in an interconference match on Wednesday evening at Toyota Park. The Fire return home sitting at the foot of the Eastern Conference, coming off a 1-0 defeat at Toronto FC last weekend. Sporting have moved above the red line in the Western Conference, their undefeated streak now at five games following a second consecutive win, a 3-1 defeat of New York City FC on Sunday afternoon at Children’s Mercy Park.
- SKC will be boosted by the return of forward Dom Dwyer, who missed the Sunday triumph over NYCFC because of yellow-card accumulation.
- The Fire have conceded just one goal in their last two games, and only four teams in MLS have conceded fewer goals than Chicago's 21 goals against.
- Wednesday's match is the only Chicago-KC meeting of the season. Sporting won the 2015 match between these teams, Paulo Nagamura's 74th-minute strike deciding a 1-0 result at Children's Mercy Park in KC.
- The Fire suffered their sixth consecutive defeat in an away match, extending their all-time MLS road winless streak to 33 games, following their 1-0 loss at Toronto FC on Saturday evening.
- Sporting KC have won back-to-back games for the first time since the start of the season, when they won their first three games of the year.
- Sporting have won the last two meetings between the teams. The last Fire victory came May 18, 2014, the first of three meetings that season, a 2-1 win at Toyota Park, the last meeting in Bridgeview.
- The Fire haven’t won in Kansas City since 2012; SKC have three wins and two draws in the home meetings since.
REFEREE: Nima Saghafi. AR1 (bench): Kyle Atkins; AR2 (opposite): Gianni Facchini; 4th: Alan Kelly
MLS Career: 3 games; FC/gm: 23.3; Y/gm: 2.3; R: 1; pens: 2
SUSPENDED: none
WARNINGS:
SUSPENDED NEXT YELLOW CARD: CHI: Matt Polster
SUSPENDED AFTER TWO YELLOW CARDS: KC: Roger Espinoza, Matt Besler, Jimmy Medranda
DISABLED LIST: none
INTERNATIONAL ABSENCES: none
HEAD-TO-HEAD
ALL-TIME (50 meetings): Fire 25 wins (1 shootout), 85 goals … Sporting 14 wins (1 shootout), 59 goals … Ties 11
AT CHICAGO (23 meetings): Fire 17 wins (0 shootout), 47 goals … Sporting 4 wins (1 shootout), 22 goals … Ties 2
LAST YEAR (MLS):
5/3: KC 1, CHI 0 (Nagamura 75)
