Rapids-Sporting Kansas City Preview

Sporting Kansas City hasn't been its typical near-flawless self at home lately, but a match with the Colorado Rapids could rekindle that.

In doing so Wednesday night, the club would clinch a playoff berth and position itself to climb as high as second in the Western Conference heading into its regular-season finale.

Sporting (13-10-9) enters the final week in sixth, but it has two matches remaining with four of the other five teams in playoff position within three points having played an additional game.

The task of leaping Seattle, Portland, Vancouver and Los Angeles was made more difficult with Friday's 1-0 loss in San Jose, though Kansas City wraps up the regular season Sunday at home against the second-place Galaxy, so everything remains in its own hands.

"I think it had a playoff feel. I think these games all do at the end of the season," coach Peter Vermes told the club's official website. "Tempo was good. I thought both teams battled. They scored, we didn't."

The defeat to the Earthquakes has Kansas City in a 2-6-2 rut in league play, though five of those losses have come on the road. Even so, the U.S. Open Cup winner's 2-1-2 span at home isn't quite up to the 7-0-3 pace it established through July.

"I think we're obviously disappointed with the result," goalkeeper Tim Melia said. "I think we picked it up in the last 30 minutes and we were pushing to get a result. We knew it was going to be difficult coming in here and we just got to move on."

A little more out of the attack might be necessary to get six points this week. Including the Open Cup, Sporting has three goals in its last five matches. Vermes' club, however, remains the only to feature three players with 10 goals in league play, but the Rapids aren't planning to keep any more of an eye on Dom Dwyer, Benny Feilhaber and Krisztian Nemeth.

"In the games that we've played, we've done a pretty good job neutralizing those players," coach Pablo Mastroeni said. "Obviously, their talent level is quite high and they'll find chances in the game, but I think for us, it's controlling what we can. And that's the way we want to play and the way we want to approach the game - mindset first and good football that follows."

Sporting is 11-0-4 in Kansas City against Colorado since last losing a home match in the series in 2002 and has conceded two goals in the last six. The clubs have split the season series with the Rapids winning 2-1 in Colorado on Aug. 29 after a 2-0 Sporting home win on June 27.

Colorado (8-14-10) has been eliminated from playoff contention and has one point and five goals on a six-match winless streak with four straight losses. The Rapids' final two matches come on the road, where they're 3-8-5, so the losing streak could come within one of the seven-match skid they went through last season.

They haven't played since a 1-0 home loss to Montreal on Oct. 10, but Mastroeni's club isn't just going through the motions to get through the end of the season.

"With nothing to play for as far as playoffs, everyone's putting in a great shift every day, super-competitive environment, and one that we'll need going to Kansas City on Wednesday," Mastroeni said.

The Rapids will be without Dillon Serna, who suffered a hamstring injury last week while playing with the United States in Olympic qualifying.