Sporting KC faces another L.A. team Sunday night on the road. Get ready for fireworks

Sporting KC overcame one of the Los Angeles MLS teams last weekend, defeating LAFC 2-1 at Children’s Mercy Park.

But no sooner had Kansas City brushed aside one Southern California team had another materialized on the radar: Sporting now must contend with the L.A. Galaxy in a Sunday night road game.

That’s right: Sporting KC travels to Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, to take on the third-place Galaxy in a Fourth of July showdown. The Galaxy lurk just two points behind Sporting KC in the Western Conference, with two games in hand over SKC.

“I think they’re on top of their game. Their players, you can see from the outside, they believe in what they’re doing,” Sporting KC coach Peter Vermes said. “They’re one of the super clubs in our league and these are always tough games for us.”

The league’s latest kickoff on Independence Day, starting at 9:30 p.m. Central Time, is sure to cause fireworks. Both teams have won a league-high seven games so far this season.

The game will also feature the most potent attack in Major League Soccer this season — Sporting KC. Vermes’ team has scored a league-high 22 goals. The Galaxy counter with the league’s leading goal-scorer, Javier Hernandez — commonly known as Chicharito. He’s scored 10 all on his own.

“He’s a guy we’re going to have to keep quiet,” KC captain Johnny Russell said.

But there is one facet of the matchup that might swing things Kansas City’s way, and it’s a weird one: the size of the field.

The Galaxy’s pitch is among the largest in the league: 110 meters long and 69 meters wide. But those dimensions happen to be identical to the size of the field at Children’s Mercy Park, and those dimensions were designed to suit Sporting KC’s style of play.

For context, 110 meters is the longest a field can be under FIFA regulations. And the 69-meter width falls just one meter short of the widest in the league — Montreal’s Saputo Stadium.

Comparatively, the smallest field in the league belongs to New York City FC, whose pitch at Yankee Stadium is just 101 by 64.

The large field will allow Sporting to play its expansive, possession-based style that focuses on attacking down the wings.

“The wider the field, the more space there is going to be for us to create,” Russell said. “That’s something that we will look to exploit.”

In years past, such a large field may not have suited Sporting KC as well — the team used to play more centrally, with a target man in the center.

But since the arrival of Alan Pulido in 2020, with his ability to drop deeper and allow for a more expansive game, the club has begun using its wingers to greater effect. It’s a return to the 2018 tactic that took KC to the Western Conference Final when wingers Russell and Daniel Salloi combined for 18 league goals. That season, KC also had a more dynamic center forward in Diego Rubio, who scored eight times during MLS competition.

Last year’s stop-and-start season made the visual progression of that tactic hard to spot, but it’s in full effect this season.

“It’s been good to watch the progression over the last six and a half games, and the consistency of that play,” Vermes said. “That part’s been very good and we’ve gotten some very good results because of it. When those two things bring the results, that’s the key.”

The proof is in the pudding for KC. Salloi has returned to top form, with seven goals to his credit already. Russell’s yet to score in 2021, but his seven big chances created this season ranks third-best in the league.

So Sporting KC will look to stretch this L.A. team’s back line Sunday by using the width of the Galaxy’s own field against them. L.A. has just two clean sheets this season, but that’s one more than Sporting ... so it’s reasonable to expect to see some fireworks in this Independence Day tilt.

“They’re the super-club and we have to find a way to go and compete with teams like that, especially away from home,” Vermes said. “Big challenge for us.”

This story was originally published July 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sporting KC faces another L.A. team Sunday night on the road. Get ready for fireworks."