KANSAS CITY, Mo. – If Teal Bunbury is Sporting Kansas City’s prized stallion, manager Peter Vermes is the cautious jockey trying to keep the 21-year-old from getting too far ahead of himself.
After being eased into things since dislocating his elbow during the preseason, Bunbury is understandably raring to get on the field and put in a full shift. And at this point, there’s not much Vermes can say or do to change his young striker’s mindset except hold on for the ride.
“I’m ready to go,” Bunbury said. “This is a big year for the organization, a big year for the club and I feel like I need to do my best to showcase what I can do.”
His first chance to do that as a starter will likely come on Saturday in Vancouver when Sporting meet the expansion side Whitecaps (7 pm ET, Direct Kick and MatchDay Live) for the first time in club history.
Through two games, both clubs have won one and lost one and enter the match in similar predicaments. Kansas City’s squad remains thinned by a spat of injuries while Vancouver have a number of question marks and will be without Russell Teibert and Omar Salgado, both at the CONCACAF U-20 Championship.
[inline_node:332294]Both teams will benefit from the return of a number of international players, but both will also be missing their Designated Players and leading scorers Omar Bravo (pictured at right) and Eric Hassli, who will miss out after earning red cards last weekend.
Not that Bunbury is particularly worried.
“We have a lot talented players and different players that can play in different positions up top,” he said. “We’re all on the same page. We all have good chemistry together, so if someone is injured or someone is missing, someone can fill that spot right away. We won’t miss a beat.”
That said, Sporting know they’re in for another strenuous road test playing in front of a sold-out crowd that gave the Whitecaps a significant boost in a victory against Toronto FC two weeks ago.
“It’s going to be a real battle in Vancouver just because they come to play no matter where they are,” Vermes said. “I like that. You just know you are in for a battle when you go there.”
Fortunately for Kansas City, they will have full use of Bunbury for the first time this season just a week after he opened his 2011 count with an opportunistic goal against the Chicago Fire as a second-half substitute.
WATCH: Bunbury scores against Chicago
It was the first in what he hopes will be at least 15 goals this season, even if it came with a caveat.
“It was a great feeling,” Bunbury said, “but we lost the game. It didn’t feel as good as I would have liked it to. That being said, hopefully I can just build on that. That’s my job as a striker: to score goals. I say that all the time, but I don’t take it lightly. I want to score goals in every game.”
Kansas City certainly wouldn’t mind that kind of production as they continue to slog through their road-heavy schedule while they waits for LIVESTRONG Sporting Park to be completed in early June.
Until then, though, Bunbury is just focusing on the game at hand, hoping to play his first full 90 minutes of the season, put the ball in the back of the net and take the full three points from the Whitecaps in their own rowdy building.
“I know its cliché,” said Bunbury, “but we have to take it one game at a time. If we start getting ahead of ourselves, that isn’t going to do any of us justice. We have to focus right now on Vancouver, take care of that, and go from there.”
