After snapping a club-record 13-match winless run final weekend of their first match following the departure of longtime supervisor Peter Vermes, Sporting Kansas Metropolis look to make it back-to-back victories after they host the Portland Timbers on Sunday.
Dejan Joveljic scored his team-leading third and fourth objectives after halftime of SKC’s 2-0 victory final Saturday over visiting St. Louis Metropolis. Sporting Kansas Metropolis improved to 1-5-1 with 4 factors.
Vermes’ exit introduced an finish to a 16-year tenure that was the longest in MLS historical past.
Now interim supervisor Kerry Zavagnin faces the problem of making an attempt to duplicate a equally intense efficiency towards Portland now that among the feelings triggered by Vermes’ departure have subsided.
“The leadup to final week’s recreation, we talked about not with the ability to do something in regards to the previous, and the previous does not actually matter,” Zavagnin mentioned. “And so we sort of go into this week with the identical concept that even though it was a optimistic outcome now, there’s nothing we are able to do about that anymore, and so we’re on to the subsequent.”
Portland (3-2-2, 11 factors) enters Sunday’s conflict in higher kind than SKC’s final opponent — unbeaten in its final 4 following a 0-0 draw final Saturday at Austin.
The Timbers have conceded solely twice over these 4 matches. And earlier than final week’s draw, Brazilian attacker Antony scored his second, third and fourth objectives throughout two snug wins, 3-1 residence to Houston and 3-0 victory at Colorado.
Portland supervisor Phil Neville additionally expects Uruguayan attacker Jonathan Rodriguez — who, like Antony, is primarily a left-sided participant — to be obtainable for the primary time this season following a knee damage. Rodriguez scored 16 objectives in 27 MLS appearances for Portland in 2024.
“He is skilled one session with the workforce. He’ll practice once more tomorrow,” Neville mentioned Thursday of Rodriguez. “So to ask him to begin a recreation is I feel actually unfair, however definitely we need to get him on the pitch. You simply hope that Antony now rises to that problem, and that is the important thing. You have to rise to the problem.”
–Discipline Degree Media