St. Louis CITY SC on the verge of history in SKC rubber match

St. Louis CITY SC will host Sporting Kansas City for the second time on Saturday, and CITY will hope that the home cooking at CITYPARK leads to a better result than their 2-1 loss in Kansas last month.

CITY are evens over their past five matches - one win, three draws, one loss - but the feeling around the squad’s form is drastically different than just three weeks ago.

João Klauss spoke at length about the team’s pride in their season so far, “We are proud for what we have done so far, but still 3 games left before playoffs are coming, not a lot of people believed that at the start of the season.

A pride that has driven St. Louis as the intensity increases week after week,

“It’s more about the character of the players that we have here”,

Klauss would continue,

“We never promised anything to anyone but to be competitive from day one. It's difficult to know but after day 1, the chemistry felt like we'd been playing for years."

The combination of hard fought draws against the LA clubs, scoring the first goal in Houston since May, and a come from behind win in Minnesota has Bradley Carnell sowing his oats ahead of a highly anticipated rematch.”

“It’s a home game, we have two left this season with an away match in between, and you can create whatever narrative you want out of this, but we want to clinch that home playoff match.”

The intensity was noticeable in training, Carnell mentioned last week that his team was, “only motivated by winning.”, and it is noticeable by how hotly contested sessions have been every single day. Sure, the intensity is worth noting, but it is also needed ahead of another pseudo-playoff atmosphere.

Carnell answered a few questions about what this third matchup,

“We just look at what they did, how we hurt them, how they hurt us. Try to build off those little moments in game where we know we can be better.”

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Sporting Kansas City need to win more than St. Louis CITY SC.

Anything less for the wiz will see their playoff hopes hanging on by the hint of a thread, an unacceptable result compared to Peter Vermes’ lofty standards of his club.

SKC’s desperation will lead to a closely contested matchup, especially when considering Sporting KC’s form over the past five matches. SKC picked up nine points, - 3W-0D-2L - in that timeframe, good enough for third in the Western Conference table.

Vermes will also have to rely on a starting XI without leading goalscorer Alan Pulido.

Pulido was listed as questionable alongside Tim Leibold.

Pulido’s health will be a major question mark in the lead up to episode three of this nascent derby. SKC’s record without Pulido is far below the playoff line, and he has been the only SKC player to score against St. Louis in their first two matches.

However, SKC aren’t the only ones feeling the pressure, history is on the line for the Hellcats.

A St. Louis CITY SC win will break LAFC’s record of wins for an expansion side, and three points will take them up to the line of clinching the top spot in the Western Conference. The magic number is four, meaning that a win and dropped points by Seattle and LAFC will officially clinch the top spot.

Bradley Carnell knows the pressure all too well, “Fine margins define games, and we’ve seen that over the past couple of games".

What’s one more to a team chasing history?

“We don’t really believe it’s happening, even when we win games we aren’t happy, this is a hungry group”