Match Day 16: Heading into the Break

Sporting Kansas City will play their 16th game of the season tomorrow, and their final game before the Copa America break that the league is taking. After tomorrow, Sporting's next game is on the 15th against Minnesota in the US Open Cup and their next league game is Sunday June 19th against FC Dallas. Tomorrow though they'll travel to LA to take on the LA Galaxy in their throw back game to the 20th anniversary of their first season in 1996.

The Galaxy will be missing two of their offensive threats tomorrow as Robbie Keane and Gyasi Zardes will both be away on national team duty for the Euros and Copa America. The pair will be missed as they've scored eight goals for the Galaxy this season, but LA will still have plenty of fire power with the likes of Mike Magee and Giovani Dos Santos both available to play tomorrow. They're currently the highest scoring team in the league with 27 goals this season and will find ways to open a defense up.

Kansas City on the other hand is one of the worst offensive teams in the league and has struggled to find the back of the net, averaging less than a goal a game so far this season. Offensively they just are not getting it done on the field with Dom Dwyer struggling to receive service and Benny Feilhaber continuing to be in his slump. What's worse for KC is that for the second straight game Kansas City will be without their top two defenders. Matt Besler is still away on national team duty while Nuno Coelho is set to miss his second game in a row due to injury. This means that Kansas City will once again go with Kevin Ellis and Ike Opara in central defense against the Galaxy attack.

Davis - Dwyer - Peterson

Feilhaber - Espinoza

Olum

Medranda - Ellis - Opara - Abdul-Salaam

Melia

Number to Remember - 13 - That's how many more goals the Galaxy have scored this season than Kansas City has. They've also done that having played three less games than Sporting KC has. It just compounds the offensive issues that Kansas City is having.

Key Match Up - Dom Dwyer vs Jelle van Damme - Once again, Dwyer is going to be going up against a pair of center backs that should tower over KC's forward. Sporting needs to find a way to get Dwyer more support, but until they do, Dwyer's going to have to take care of business against the former Belgian international.

PREDICTION - Kansas City's win over Orlando City looks right now to have been a minor peak in what is a very deep valley for the team. Kansas City is struggling everywhere on the field right now. Having Espinoza back in midfield should provide some help to the team in shutting down the Galaxy there, but they don't have the scoring punch to go toe to toe with the Galaxy and the defense isn't strong enough to stop the league's highest scoring offense. Kansas City is going to have a while to stew on this one.

SKC - 0
LA - 3 (Dos Santos x2, Magee)