Sporting Kansas City will look to remain unbeaten at home when they host the Vancouver Whitecaps in Major League Soccer action at Children's Mercy Park on Sunday.
Both clubs will consider themselves unlucky to lose their midweek matches, as KC fell 1-0 to Houston, and the Whitecaps dropped a 1-0 decision to Minnesota.
Match preview
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Sporting KC seemingly did everything except score on Wednesday when they lost to the Dynamo despite having 16 shots, 56% possession, while creating 10 scoring opportunities.
It was only the second time this year they had more possession than their opponents, but with a very different result, as last Sunday they scored twice in the final 10 minutes to beat Austin 2-1.
When you face a team coached by Peter Vermes, you better make the most of your opportunities because, as many MLS teams can tell you, they do not give you many chances to score.
If you include their match on Wednesday, Sporting have held their opponents to one shot on goal or fewer on 55 occasions in the regular season, with Houston becoming only the second team in that span to defeat KC despite being held in check for most of the match.
Seeing KC lose this many games (two) to start a season is extremely rare for a side that have shown plenty of consistency in the past and who are usually fast starters.
The last time they lost two games or more in the opening five weeks of a season was way back in 2011 when they dropped three of their first five fixtures but recovered to finish first in the Western Conference.
The Whitecaps have started the season brightly with seven points from their opening five games as they sit in fifth place in the Western Conference standings.
They were unfortunate to come away with nothing in their midweek encounter versus Minnesota, where they failed to solve Tyler Miller, who made several brilliant saves.
Despite that disappointing result, manager Marc Dos Santos will be happy to see his team hanging around and keeping their matches close so far in 2021, as all but one of their games to this point of the season have been decided by a goal or fewer.
That is already a vast improvement from 2020, when the Whitecaps let several games get out of hand, losing four of their regular-season fixtures by three goals or more and missing the playoffs for a third consecutive season.
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Team News
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Goalkeeper Tim Melia continues to be hampered by a chest injury, while reserve keeper Brooks Thompson has back issues, which means John Pulskamp will start his sixth match of this season.
Graham Zusi, who sat out on Wednesday, will be eager to draw back into the lineup and contribute as he needs just one more goal to move into seventh place on the club's all-time goals list, alongside Benny Feilhaber and Mo Johnston.
Whitecaps centre-back Erik Godoy has a calf strain while the club continues to sort out the visa situation for full-back Ali Adnan, the player of the year for the 'Caps in 2020.
Goalkeeper Maxime Crepeau has been a big part of the early success for Vancouver, with two clean sheets already, which is one more than he had during the entire 2020 campaign.
Sporting Kansas City possible starting lineup:
Pulskamp; Martins, Fontas, llie, Lindsey; Walter; Shelton, Kinda, Busio; Salloi, Pulido
Vancouver Whitecaps possible starting lineup:
Crepeau; Gutierrez, Cornelius, Veselinovic, Gaspar; Owusu, Alexandre, Raposo, Caicedo; Cavallini, Dajome
We say: Sporting Kansas City 0-0 Vancouver Whitecaps
Both teams have done an excellent job thus far when it comes to limiting their opponents' scoring opportunities, with neither side conceding more than six shots on target in a single match this season.
However, the 'Caps and Wizards have also failed to consistently cash in on their scoring chances, as both sides have notched a goal or fewer in three of their five encounters which means we could be in for a defensive showcase on Sunday.
Top tip
Joel Lefevre
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Sporting Kansas City win with a probability of 72.18%. A draw had a probability of 17.5% and a win for Vancouver Whitecaps had a probability of 10.34%.
The most likely scoreline for a Sporting Kansas City win was 2-0 with a probability of 13.02%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 1-0 (11.58%) and 3-0 (9.77%). The likeliest drawn scoreline was 1-1 (8.31%), while for a Vancouver Whitecaps win it was 0-1 (3.7%). The actual scoreline of 3-0 was predicted with a 9.8% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted that Sporting Kansas City would win this match.
