To the Great White North

The Wizards continue a busy week tomorrow in Toronto when they take on TFC at BMO Field. Toronto picked up their first win since their opening day win over Kansas City on Wednesday with a 1-0 win over Chivas USA. While John Carver was technically still in charge of the team, he didn't pick the lineup which was more of a 4-3-3, with a triangle midfield. They will be without Dwayne DeRosario, who has a hamstring injury.

Kansas City will likely be forced to make changes to their lineup that had started the last 4 games, as it appears unlikely that Jack Jewsbury will be able to go after his concussion against New York on Thursday. KC will need to step up their game as a whole tomorrow after a lackluster effort in the win over New York. I'd expect our lineup tomorrow to look similar to the lineup that we saw at the end of the first half against New York

Hartman
Watson - Conrad - Hohlbein - Besler
Hirsig
Harrington - Arnaud - Gomez
Wolff - Lopez

Key Match up - New thing I'm doing to try to do each game is focus on a key match up. This week, it's Santiago Hirsig vs Amado Guevara. Hirsig dropped into the holding midfield role after Jewsbury went off last week. If he's there again this week, that means he'll likely be matched up mainly with Guevara, who has torn been a major torn in the Wizards side for years now. How Hirsig is able to contain Guevara will go a long way to helping KC.

PREDICTION - As mentioned earlier, KC is going to have to improve their play if they are going to take points from this game. They can't expect teams to get a red card every game, or think the game is only 75 minutes long, or a penalty kick every week. The Wizards have to come out and actually play to be able to get anything from this game. The midfield and forwards are going to have to capitalize on their chances on goal. The scoring chances from the run of play have been lacking recently, so taking their chances in the run of play better will do a lot. If KC plays better, they can get out of Toronto on a 5 game unbeaten streak with a draw or a win. If they play like they did for most of the game against New York, I can't see them getting out of Canada with a point or 3.

KC 1 - (Lopez)
TFC 1 - (Guevara)