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Sporting KC trying to shake road woes in playoff matchup versus Houston Dynamo
The Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City know each other well after playing twice in the final two weeks of the MLS regular season.
But there will be a lot more than pride on the line when the two sides square off for a Western Conference knockout playoff game on Thursday at BBVA Compass Stadium in downtown Houston.
Thursday's winner will face either Portland or Seattle next week in the conference semifinals.
This will be the fourth playoff meeting between Houston and Sporting KC since 2011. The Dynamo won the first two matchups, beating Sporting KC in the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2011 and in the Eastern championship in 2012. Kansas City got a bit of revenge in 2013, when it topped the Dynamo in the Eastern Conference Championship series on the way to winning the MLS Cup.
The Dynamo (13-10-11, 50 points) will play in the postseason for the first time since 2013 and earned that right mostly with its play at home. Houston won a conference-best 12 matches on its pitch and clinched the fourth seed in the West with a 3-0 home victory against Chicago on Decision Day.
"Each game is totally different -- we can play a team 100 times, and each game is going to be different," Dynamo coach Wilmer Cabrera said. "That's why we need to be sharp, and that's why we are already thinking it's going to be a tougher game."
Houston will enter the match as the favorite to advance to the Western Conference semifinals based on its production at home this season and its solid form of three wins and three draws in its final six matches. That stretch includes a 2-1 home win versus Sporting KC on Oct. 11 and a scoreless draw at Kansas City four days later.
"We'll be home and we're strong here," said Mauro Manotas, who was one of three Dynamo players to score 10 goals this season. "They (Sporting KC) need to come with that mentality that we're (Houston Dynamo) winners at home."
Houston will be forced to play the rest of the campaign without stalwart defender A.J. DeLaGarza, who suffered a season-ending knee injury eight minutes into last Sunday's regular-season finale.
Sporting KC (12-9-13, 49 points), which spent better than two months atop the West table this season, slipped to fifth after its 2-1 loss at Real Salt Lake in its final match.
Sporting KC endured a difficult second half, forging only four victories since July 1 and going 0-3-2 in its final five matches of the regular season. It has had a rough time on the road, too, posting a 2-8-7 record in 17 regular-season matches away from Children's Mercy Park.
If Sporting KC is to advance, it will have to do so without Tim Melia, a front-runner for MLS goalkeeper of the year and one of the club's best players all season. The veteran backstop went down with a hamstring injury Oct. 7. Backup goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra will get his fourth straight start in place of Melia.
Dykstra, 31, already faced the Dynamo twice in the closing weeks of the regular season. He suffered a 2-1 away loss Oct. 11 on a late own goal and earned a clean sheet at home four days later in a scoreless draw in the season's penultimate match.
"Andrew has shown incredible leadership, incredible confidence and experience on the field," Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said. "His distribution has been good. His reading of the game has been really good. He's locked in and he's given a good level of confidence to the team, for sure."
Houston is unbeaten in eight consecutive MLS games versus Sporting Kansas City (four wins, four draws). In two playoff games in Houston, Sporting failed to score. Houston has lost only once in 12 MLS home playoff games (eight wins, three draws in 90 minutes), and it has kept seven clean sheets across those 12 matches.
