Colorado Makes First Visit To Livestrong Park

Its appropriate that Colorado, home to the Garmin-Cervelo pro bike racing team and so many American bike racers, is going to Livestrong Park tomorrow during the first week of the Tour de France (can you tell one of my other interests is bicycle racing?). Kansas City finally got a home of their own and this will be the Rapids first look at it. A few supporters are making our second-shortest road trip, but with our shortest trip (to FSL), MLS did us no favors by making it a midweek game. For the rest of us the game will be on Altitude tomorrow starting at 6:30pm. No official Class VI/Pid Army viewing party, but I'm sure there will be groups at the Highland Tavern and the British Bulldog.

Injury Report:

QUESTIONABLE: FW Macoumba Kandji (L knee ACL tear)

PROBABLE: FW Omar Cummings (R ankle sprain); MF Brian Mullan (lower back spasms); MF Joseph Nane (R shoulder strain); GK Matt Pickens (R groin strain); MF Jamie Smith (R calf strain); DF Anthony Wallace (R quad strain)

Disciplinary Report:

SUSPENDED: FW Quincy Amarikwa

SUSPENDED AFTER 1 MORE CAUTION: MF Pablo Mastroeni (1 game good behavior removes one)

SUSPENDED AFTER 2 MORE CAUTIONS: FW Conor Casey; MF Jeff Larentowicz; DF Tyrone Marshall; DF Drew Moor; DF Anthony Wallace

Suddenly our injury report got much worse. 3 new players added to it since Friday. Along with a 3-game week the lineup is going to be kind of hard to figure out. 4 KC players will be missing due to injury. My guess at the starting XI:

Pickens

Kimura - Wynne - Marshall - Moor

Nyassi - Mastroeni - Larentowicz - Thompson

Casey - Cummings

Midfield is a complete tossup. I'm guessing that Smith rests both Mullan and Smith for the game on Saturday, but who knows. I'm sure he'd like to rest Cummings but they need some firepower and he has to get C+C Goal Factory working again. I wouldn't be shocked to see Palguta play for Marshall or Wynne but I think the regular back 4 will start.

Key To Look For: Can we score? Since our 8 goals in 3 games to start the season we've only scored more than 1 twice. Not surprising we've only won twice as well. No goals means no wins.

Prediction: 2-1 loss, goal by Casey. I've seen nothing in the Rapids play over the last two months that makes me thing we're going to score more than 1. Meanwhile KC is en fuego right now. I think the short turn-around+ travel is enough to give Sporting the edge in this one, but the Rapids have proven themselves to be tenacious this year. A draw wouldn't be much of a surprise.