Hot, muggy, chance of storm delays: weather forecast sketchy for Sporting KC Wednesday
Wednesday morning will feel like a blast from the past for Sporting Kansas City’s players and staff.
It will bring them back to their high school days of playing competitive club soccer: waking up in a hotel room before the sun has risen, eating a communal breakfast while it’s still dark out and then finally heading to the soccer field in the muggy morning air.
By 9 a.m. Eastern Time Wednesday morning, both Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake will be lined up for their game in the third round of group play at the MLS is Back Tournament at the ESPN World Wide of Sports in Orlando, Florida.
But that doesn’t faze a couple of KC’s most senior players.
“I’m excited for it,” goalkeeper Tim Melia said Monday. “(Gerso Fernandes and I) are fathers, so we’re up super early anyway, so this is going to be nothing for us.”
The morning kickoff — 8 a.m Central Time — will be the earliest for a competitive game in Sporting KC history.
“I think when I was younger I’d prefer to have that rest period of the day,” Melia said. “But now, as I get older, I just want to play. I just want to wake up in the morning, have your meal and have your meeting, then get out on the field and get going.”
“I do prefer to play in the morning, just because you wake up and you are already ready for the game,” Fernandes agreed. “You don’t have to wait so much to play the game so you are focused and fresh right in the morning. I think it’s the best thing, so I’m excited for it.”
A multitude of factors come into play for Wednesday’s match, Sporting KC’s third and last game of the group stage before the knockout portion of MLS is Back begins. Chief among them: the high heat and humidity that come with playing in Orlando in the middle of summer.
“Usually at 10 o’clock the heat really starts to kick in here,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said. “So the second half is going to be a tough 45 minutes.”
Wednesday’s current weather forecast for Orlando is favorable in terms of the heat but potentially problematic due to possible morning storms. The temperature should be about 84 degrees at kickoff and 87 during the course of the game, but isolated thunderstorms could cause delays.
Multiple games have been delayed during this tournament because of thunderstorms and nearby lightning. And a delayed game Wednesday morning could also mean finishing in hotter temperatures; it’ll be 90 or so by noon.
Weather aside, complacency and fatigue that have been apparent factors during early games across the tournament. Not including Tuesday morning’s game between Toronto and New England, of the five games played in the 9 a.m. Eastern time slot, 10 goals have been scored — with eight of those coming in the second half.
“We expected that late in the games, or at least the last 20 or 30 minutes, the games were going to become more wide open and probably a lot of goals would be scored, or at least a lot of chances would be had,” Vermes said.
Both Sporting KC and Real Salt Lake need a win. Salt Lake sits at the top of Group D, with four points and a plus-two goal differential, while Kansas City is a point behind, in third, with a goal difference of zero.
The top two teams in each group qualify automatically to the round of 16. The top four third-place teams also move on to the knockout round.
A win for Sporting Kansas City would guarantee a top-two spot. A tie would see Sporting either move into second on goal difference or goals scored if Colorado defeats Minnesota, or remain in third and likely qualify as a third-place team. Sporting could still advance with a loss Wednesday, but other results would need to go KC’s way.
Sporting KC is taking nothing for granted. Vermes knows that every group-stage game counts toward the MLS regular-season standings.
“I think the thing is, for us, it’s a league game. That’s how we’re looking at it, it’s truly a league game,” Vermes said. “When we go into a league game we want to get a result so if we get a result, we have a chance of going through.”
“The first objective is to just concentrate on it being a league game and that’s how we have to look at it.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 2:49 PM with the headline "Hot, muggy, chance of storm delays: weather forecast sketchy for Sporting KC Wednesday."