KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Over the next week, Sporting Kansas City can either take control of their CONCACAF Champions League group – or see their chances for a second straight trip to the knockout stage slip away entirely.
It all depends on the results of their next two CCL matches, both at home, starting with Thurday's matchup against Costa Rican power Deportivo Saprissa (8 pm ET; Fox Sports 1 and Univision Deportes).
Saprissa lead the group with four points after two matches, while next Tuesday's opponent – Nicaraguan side Real Esteli, who Sporting drew 1-1 away in their opener – are on two points after three. Win both of their upcoming matches, and Sporting would knock Esteli out of contention and lead the group with seven points going into their finale on Oct. 23 in Costa Rica.
“If we don't get six points, it'll make it extremely difficult, obviously,” midfielder Benny Feilhaber told reporters after Wednesday's training session. “Saprissa's got four points, and if they steal a point from us tomorrow, it's five points and they've got the home matchup against us. We'd be, at most, five points. Obviously, we've got to take care of both these games – tomorrow being the first one, the one we're focused on – and take it from there.”
Manager Peter Vermes cautioned against putting too much weight on Thursday's match, though.
“Sure, you'd like to get all the points you can,” he said on Tuesday during the club's weekly news conference. “I mean, that's what you want to do, and you'd like to get them at home as well. But as you saw last year, we got the majority of our points on the road. Group play is one game at a time, and then you keep finding yourself for the next game.”
Sporting do take a burst of confidence into Thursday night's matchup, after halting a four-match losing skid in MLS play with last weekend's 4-0 rout of Chivas USA – a match that saw forward Dom Dwyer set a new club record with his 19th goal of the season.
“It's just good to get the win, because we hadn't won in quite some time,” Feilhaber said. “When you start losing the way you had, you lose a little bit of confidence. If you ask these guys, everybody knows that we can win each, every game, but it's about that little voice in the back of your head when it's not getting done – 'What's going wrong?' – and there's questions.
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"Obviously, getting the result was huge for us, and hopefully we're back to what we've always been about.”
And with five days' rest between that match and Thursday's, Dwyer said, Sporting will be good to go against Saprissa.
“I feel like we're always on the go,” he said on Wednesday. “You get as much rest as you can. We're fit, we're ready and the games are spread out nicely. You don't get to train as much as maybe you'd want to, but you get to play games, so that's fun.”
Steve Brisendine covers Sporting Kansas City for MLSsoccer.com.
