We Want the Cup

Tomorrow night at LiveSTRONG Sporting Park KC will continue another quest for silverware, in the US Open Cup proper. The Cup is entering it's third round this Tuesday, and all 8 MLS teams that qualified for the tournament are entering at this stage. Kansas City's opponents, the Chicago Fire PDL came into the tournament in round 1. In the first round they took out the Iowa Menace, who qualified as a Region II representative, 1-0. In the second round, it took two days after weather delays, but the Fire took out the Madison 56ers of the NPSL 2-0 with two goals in the span of a couple minutes. Chicago gets to move their league game against Forest City London that was to take place tomorrow as well to come to Kansas City for this game.

Even with KC's current run of form, this may be the Wizards best chance at silverware this season. Mainly because they only have to win 4 games to get the cup and into next seasons CONCACAF Champion's Cup. Most fans seem to want KC to go for the cup as well. In my informal poll this afternoon on Twitter, it was unanimously in favor of going for the cup. KC fans certainly want to get some more silverware, and as stated above, this is possibly the best way to go about getting it. Expect to see quite a few changes to the lineup that took the field against Vancouver on the weekend. Having already played 2 games in the past 7 days, I expect we'll see quite a few starters rested and bench players get on the field. Hopefully this is a chance for a guy like Teal Bunbury and Kei Kamara to get back some of their goalscoring form heading into a very congested part of the season. As for the lineup, this is a complete and total guess from me.

Kronberg
Harrington - Thomas - Collin - Aiyegbusi
Auvray - Sassano - Diop
Kamara - Bunbury - Stojcev

Number to Remember - 4 - This is the fourth time that KC has played a PDL team in the Open Cup. KC is 2-0-1 against the PDL teams in the tournament. The two wins came against the Des Moines Menace in 2005 and 2006 winning 6-1 and 2-1 respectively. The other was a 0-0 draw with the Chicago Sockers that KC lost on penalty kicks back in 2000.

Key Match Up - Teal Bunbury vs Chicago's defenders - Bunbury's slump has gotten to the point where it's really starting to hurt KC. It's time for him to step up and put the ball in the net. Getting at least 1 tomorrow will do wonders, getting more would be fantastic.

PREDICTION - Winning may not be the best thing schedule congestion wise for KC, but I want KC to win the trophy, we're four wins away from getting the trophy. Chicago is a good PDL side, but even with a group of mainly reserves KC should be able to defeat the PDL side. Of course you would have said the same thing about KC's chances in 2000.

KC - 3 (Bunbury, Kamara, Diop)
CHI - 0