Are We "Stoked?"

Tomorrow Kansas City plays their second international friendly of the season when they take on English Premier League side Stoke City at Livestrong Sporting Park.  Stoke so far is 1-1 on this tour of the United States, they opened the tour with a loss to the Columbus Crew 2-1 and defeated Orlando City 1-0.  Stoke have brought what is basically their full roster for the tour including Peter Crouch, Ryan Shawcross, and Kenwyne Jones.  After being out at training tonight though I doubt Shawcross plays much of a roll if at all tomorrow, as he spent the session running with the trainer.

Sporting KC is in an interesting situation for themselves with this friendly.  Their busy schedule has caught up with them it'd appear, along with the warm weather, slowing down their high pressure game.  They're struggling to pick up points right now, at an inopportune time with the US Open Cup final only a week away.  The lack of goal scoring and 4 games without a win at home.  With a game this weekend ahead of the Open Cup final Peter Vermes has some decisions to make selection wise.  In the past he's liked to have his starters play 2 games in a week, usually with the second being a scrimmage during the week in practice.  But with so many meaningful games going on and the biggest game of his head coaching career in a week he could look to give starters some rest.  I think we'll possibly see a few a few starters get some time, and probably a bigger bench than we saw against Montpellier last week.

Kronberg

Ellis - Markovic - Besler - Sinovic

Cesar - Nagamura

Joseph

Kamara - Bunbury - Aiyegbusi

PREDICTION - Please no more injuries, with Aurelien Collin, Chance Myers, CJ Sapong, and Jacob Peterson all battling injuries, just no one get hurt.  Score tomorrow means nothing.