The End of the Road

It's been a long 2 and a half months, but it's finally coming to an end tomorrow when KC ends their 10 game road trip in Toronto. KC ended their long losing streak last week in Colorado with a 1-1 draw against the defending champs. Toronto comes into this game on the backs of a humiliating 6-2 loss to Philadelphia at home. The Toronto defense was torn to shreds by a Philadelphia attack that had only scored 8 goals before the game. The Toronto defense got two more hits for this coming weekend's game. First, last year's MVP, Adrian Cann tore his ACL in practice and is done for the season. The team will also be without defender, Dicoy Williams, who is with the Jamaican national team for the Gold Cup. Julian De Guzman is Toronto's other Gold Cup call up. They will have 19 year old Ecuadorian, Joao Plata, who did not travel with the Ecuadorian national team and will be available tomorrow.

KC will still be without Stephane Auvray, Roger Espinoza, and Shavar Thomas for the Gold Cup, and Kei Kamara for Sierra Leone's African Cup of Nations qualifier, but my player of the month for May, Craig Rocastle is still with the team and will not depart to join Grenada until after this game, which is good news for KC. It looks like Seth Sinovic is not going to be able to go, which could create a hole at left back again. After the Colorado game though, I wonder if we'll see Chance Myers drop back in on the right and Michael Harrington shift left as they played in the second half of the Rapids game. Either that or we could see Scott Lorenz or Korede Aiyegbusi take up the spot on the left wing. I think we'll see a very similar lineup to the one that took the field for the second half vs Colorado. The only other question being whether CJ Sapong or Teal Bunbury starts in the center striker position. I lean towards Sapong because he plays the position the way more to Peter Vermes liking. It also sounds like Kronberg will get his second start of the season in goal.

Kronberg
Myers - Collin - Besler - Harrington
Arnaud - Rocastle - Zusi
Smith - Sapong - Bravo

Number to Remember - 1 - One road game left. One more game before coming home. It's almost over. Also that's the number of wins KC has in Toronto, the win came on the stadium opener.

Key Match Up - Chance Myers vs Joao Plata - This match up is the only reason I could see Myers not starting tomorrow. I'm not sure I like this match up for KC with Plata lined up on TFC's left side. Plata has plenty of skill and with Myers training mainly as a forward lately I kind of hope that Vermes keeps Harrington on the right to deal with the Ecuadorian.

PREDICTION - I've seen a lot of KC fans calling this game a good chance to score plenty of goals, but I don't agree. After a big loss like that, Toronto is likely going to drop off a bit to try and stop the bleeding from last week. KC did a similar thing in Seattle after the 4-1 loss in LA. So I'd expect something similar this week. This game has the feeling that it'll be a dull, defensive game decided by a one goal, if one is scored at all.

KC - 0
TFC - 0