Match Day 7: Playing in the Rain

Sporting Kansas City gets the chance to quickly get over the performance on Wednesday night against Colorado with a game tomorrow against FC Dallas. That's assuming the game takes place as it looks like Dallas will be dealing with some severe weather tomorrow evening that will start around the same time the game is scheduled to start. The weather could certainly play a big role in tomorrow's game even if it is played, the style of play will change greatly if Dallas gets the amount of rain that is predicted tomorrow.

Dallas comes into the game having played in the midweek as well, picking up a big 3-1 win over the road against the Portland Timbers. A stand out performance for them, a very good result on the road, that they got without Mauro Diaz playing in the game. Goals from Michael Barrios, Tesho Akindele, and Fabian Castillo helped Dallas to the win. Their attack, while lacking that "go to" striker is more dangerous because of the fact that Dallas can beat you from so many different ways. Even though it appears that Diaz will miss out tomorrow night as well, Dallas isn't a team that KC can take lightly.

Peter Vermes' starting lineup on Wednesday against the Rapids would seem to point to KC not taking Dallas lightly (unfortunately that probably didn't help the performance on Wednesday) resting the likes of Benny Feilhaber and Dom Dwyer, at least for a half on Wednesday. With the busy schedule KC has just kicked off that's not surprising. Both I'd expect in the starting 11 tomorrow. Elsewhere on the field though it looks like injuries will keep Soni Mustivar and Chance Myers another week. That means that Lawrence Olum and Saad Abdul-Salaam seem likely to get another start for Kansas City down in Dallas. The big question may be whether club captain, Matt Besler returns from his concussion tomorrow after being on the bench on Wednesday.

Davis - Dwyer - Zusi

Espinoza - Feilhaber

Olum

Dia - Besler - Coelho - SAS

Melia

Number to Remember - 0 - KC has won zero games in Dallas since KC's 4-1 win there back in 2011, Graham Zusi's coming out party. To be far, KC has played there just twice in that time frame, drawing one and losing the other last year.

Key Match Up - Dia/SAS vs Barrios/Castillo - The wingers for Dallas are quite good and have plenty of pace to use. They're going to be a handful for Dia and Abdul-Salaam to deal with. In KC's favor though the pair were able to do well against them last year in three of the clubs' four meetings in all competitions last year.

PREDICTION - Dallas was a preseason MLS Cup favorite with how Oscar Pareja has built the club and what he has been able to get out of the talent the club has. He has some of the best young, Latin talent in the league in the likes of Castillo and Barrios. The defense has also been strong with the likes of Matt Hedges controlling the back line. They are just a good all around team. I'm not sure that KC is going to be able to get out of Dallas tomorrow with anything to show for their efforts unfortunately.

SKC - 1 (Dwyer)
FCD - 3 (Urruti, Castillo, Barrios)