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Red Bulls-Sporting Kansas City Preview

Sporting Kansas City and the New York Red Bulls have each clinched playoff spots. Exactly which spots can still vary considerably.

The defending MLS Cup champion meets last season's Supporters' Shield winner Sunday night in Kansas City for the regular-season finale with both clubs still hoping to avoid the Eastern Conference knockout round.

"New York's a good team, that will be a tough game, but we're at home," Sporting striker Dom Dwyer told the league's official website. "If we show up and play our best, then we should win the game. It's a big game and we have to focus on that to pick up some momentum for playoffs."

Sporting (14-12-7) enters the weekend in third place with 49 points, tied with Columbus but holding the first tiebreaker because it has won one more game than the Crew. The Red Bulls (12-10-11) are two points back in fifth.

Kansas City can assure itself the third seed in the East with a win, thus avoiding the knockout match between the fourth and fifth seeds. A draw could result in it finishing fourth, depending on Columbus' result against Philadelphia, a match that will end before things get underway at Sporting Park.

A Red Bulls' win would assure Sporting a spot in the knockout game while giving New York a chance to jump both teams and finish third, but that would also require a Crew defeat.

Should New York win and Columbus draw, resulting in both teams finishing with 50 points and 13 wins, the second tiebreaker of goal differential would almost certainly favor the Crew (plus-9) over the Red Bulls (plus-3).

New York also has the subplot of striker Bradley Wright-Phillips' outside chance at matching or breaking the MLS single-season scoring record. He enters with 25 goals, two shy of the co-owned record of Chris Wondolowski (2012) and Roy Lassiter (1996), and has five multigoal matches this season. Dwyer enters the weekend in second with 22.

Kansas City finds itself in this situation after a 2-1 loss at Philadelphia on Oct. 18, though it was without midfielder Graham Zusi and defender Matt Besler due to injury.

It followed that up with a 2-0 loss at Costa Rican club Saprissa on Thursday in the CONCACAF Champions League, again playing without Zusi and Besler as Sporting was eliminated from the competition.

The Red Bulls are also limping in after last Sunday's 3-1 home loss to Columbus.

"We could have secured, in the very least, home-field advantage for a playoff game, and we could have jumped to third place," coach Mike Petke said. "There's no confidence thing or anything like that, there's the fact that we could potentially go to Columbus for a play-in game, or, it could be go to Kansas City for a play-in game three days after we play them. That's the tough part to swallow. We had the opportunity before the game to sit back and realize where we could end up with a result, and we just couldn't get it done."

The clubs played to a 1-1 draw at Sporting Park on May 27, while the Red Bulls won 2-1 in New York on Sept. 6. Wright-Phillips scored in each. Dwyer scored in the loss and has goals in two of his three career matches against the Red Bulls.

Sporting has gone 0-1-2 since its last home win over New York on Oct. 15, 2011.

Kansas City will be without defender Igor Juliao due to suspension, and New York's defender Armando will miss the match due to yellow-card accumulation.

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