Orlando City

Orlando City vs. Sporting Kansas City: Preview, How to Watch, TV Info, Live Stream, Lineups, Match Thread, and More

The Lions look to avoid a letdown after an emotional win over Miami when they host Sporting Kansas City tonight.

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9 months ago

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Image courtesy of Orlando City SC / Mark Thor

Welcome to your match thread for a Saturday night matchup between Orlando City (12-6-8, 44 point) and Sporting Kansas City (6-13-6, 24 points) at Inter&Co Stadium. It is the lone meeting of the two sides scheduled for 2025.

Here’s what you need to know ahead of the match.

History

Orlando City is 3-3-2 in the all-time series and 2-0-1 at home. The most recent meeting occurred on Aug. 24, 2024 at Children’s Mercy Park, with Sporting Kansas City pounding the Lions 3-0. Jake Davis, Daniel Salloi, and Remi Walter scored the goals as the Lions failed to put a single shot on target or to take advantage of being up a man for 35 minutes in a lackluster effort. It snapped Orlando City’s eight-game unbeaten run (5-0-3). However, the Lions went 6-2-0 down the stretch after that loss to climb into the top four in the Eastern Conference.

Prior to 2024, the last time the teams met was on April 23, 2021 at Children’s Mercy Park, with Orlando City coming from behind to earn a 1-1 road draw. The Lions fell behind just before halftime on a Gianluca Busio goal, but Nani’s late backheel goal evened things out in the end. Orlando had two goals called back in the game and the hosts had one as well.

The Lions’ first ever away victory in the series occurred in a 2-1 Orlando City win on Sept. 23, 2020. Benji Michel and Tesho Akindele gave a heavily rotated Orlando side the lead and the Lions held on after a Johnny Russell goal to get the win.

In 2019, this fixture took place in Orlando and finished as a 1-0 Orlando City win at Exploria Stadium on Aug. 14. Akindele scored the game’s only goal off a Carlos Ascues pass, although both teams squandered offensive opportunities in the match.

The 2018 meeting finished with a 1-0 SKC victory at Children’s Mercy Park on Sept. 8. Felipe Gutierrez provided the only goal in Dom Dwyer’s return to Kansas City. It was a rough outing for Dwyer, who missed two golden opportunities to score.

Sporting was the first MLS team to come into the venue then known as Orlando City Stadium and take any points in a 2-2 draw in 2017. Latif Blessing scored both SKC goals in the first non-win for the Lions in their new stadium. That non-win happened because the assistant referee ruled that Will Johnson’s corner kick service curled over the end line in the air before Jose Aja had headed it home for an apparent go-ahead goal. Cyle Larin and Kaká scored Orlando’s goals that counted.

In 2016, the Lions went into Children’s Mercy Park and gave up an incredible 34 shots en route to a 2-1 loss in Kansas City. With that many shots, it was a minor miracle to escape without a more lopsided scoreline. At the time, Sporting put up the third-most shots ever in a regular-season MLS game and the most since 1998. David Mateos nodded in off Jimmy Medranda for an own goal to get the Lions on the board with an improbable lead. Joe Bendik made 10 saves but conceded goals to Dwyer (74’) and Jacob Peterson (79’) five minutes apart, as SKC came from behind to win.

The Lions captured the first meeting, 3-1 at home on Sept. 13, 2015. That win snapped a seven-game winless skid at the time and kicked off a club record five-game winning streak. Adrian Winter started the party with a third-minute goal and added another in the 72nd to seal it. After Krisztian Nemeth had equalized in the 59th, Bryan Rochez put Orlando back on top for good with his first MLS goal in the 66th minute.

Overview

The Lions are coming off an impressive 4-1 home win over Inter Miami on Sunday. The Herons, who are still formidable offensively even though Lionel Messi didn’t play, were unable to muster many clear-cut chances as Luis Muriel scored a brace and Martin Ojeda and Marco Pasalic also scored. Yannick Bright’s highlight-reel goal was Miami’s only moment of magic as the Lions swept the season series to extend their current unbeaten streak across all competitions to six matches (5-0-1). It was also Orlando’s third consecutive win in MLS play, improving to 6-4-3 at home.

Sporting Kansas City is 3-7-2 on the road in 2025 and let go of longtime head coach Peter Vermes on March 31. The team is 6-8-5 since Kerry Zavagnin took over as interim coach. Tonight’s visitors are 0-3-1 in their last four matches and have been outscored 5-0 in their last two.

However, last year should serve as a cautionary tale. Orlando was riding an unbeaten streak against a Sporting team that had the exact same numbers of wins, draws, and points at roughly the same point in the season, and Kansas City put Orlando City on full blast. The win against Miami will mean little if the Lions turn around and drop points at home to the Western Conference’s 13th-place team. Orlando City enters 4-0-0 against Western Conference competition in 2025.

Dejan Joveljic came over from the LA Galaxy in the off-season and the Designated Player has fit in well with Sporting KC, leading the club in goals (13) to go along with a pair of assists. Salloi has chipped in six goals and four assists in 2025, with Erik Thommy adding four goals and four assists, although the latter has been dealing with a hip injury. Orlando City will also not have to contend with Manu Garcia, a playmaking midfielder with nine assists to go with his two goals this season, as he’s been dealing with a quad issue. Stopping Sporting Kansas City’s playmakers will be more difficult with Cesar Araujo unavailable due to suspension for yellow card accumulation.

“We have built a culture around the club that the most important game is the next one, not the one that just passed. You might want to magnify it, but now we need to think about Sporting Kansas City and not even think about Toluca (in the upcoming Leagues Cup quarterfinal match on Wednesday) or their team yet,” Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja said ahead of the match. “We are very concentrated on the league [MLS]. We still have new goals in this part of the season. The players are conscious of that. I hope that against Kansas City we can have, if not the same, even better energy (than against Miami).”

In addition to Araujo, the Lions will be without Duncan McGuire (shoulder), Wilder Cartagena (Achilles), and Yutaro Tsukada (knee), while Joran Gerbet (thigh) has been upgraded to questionable. Sporting Kansas City will be without Joaquin Fernandez (hamstring), Garcia (quad), Logan Ndenbe (hamstring), and Thommy (hip).

Match Content

Official Lineups:

Orlando City (4-4-2)

Goalkeeper: Pedro Gallese.

Defenders: David Brekalo, Robin Jansson, Rodrigo Schlegel, Dagur Dan Thorhallsson.

Midfielders: Tyrese Spicer, Kyle Smith, Eduard Atuesta, Marco Pasalic.

Forwards: Martin Ojeda, Luis Muriel.

Bench: Javier Otero, Adrian Marin, Alex Freeman, Zakaria Taifi, Joran Gerbet, Colin Guske, Nico Rodriguez, Ivan Angulo, Ramiro Enrique.

Sporting Kansas City (4-4-2)

Goalkeeper: John Pulskamp.

Defenders: Tim Leibold, Jansen Miller, Robert Voloder, Khiry Shelton.

Midfielders: Santiago Munoz, Jake Davis, Zorhan Bassong, Shapi Suleymanov.

Forwards: Mason Toye, Dejan Joveljic.

Bench: Ryan Schewe, Andrew Brody, Alan Montes, Nemanja Radoja, Memo Rodriguez, Jacob Bartlett, Daniel Salloi, Stephen Afrifa.

Referees

Ref: Ricardo Montero Araya.
AR1: Matthew Nelson.
AR2: Walt Heatherly.
4th: Matt Thompson.
VAR: Jorge Gonzalez.
AVAR: John Krill.

How to Watch

Match Time: 7:30 p.m.

Venue: Inter&Co Stadium — Orlando.

TV/Live Stream: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV+.

Radio: AM 810 FOX Sports Radio Orlando (English), Mega 97.1 FM (Spanish).

Social Media: For rapid reaction and live updates, follow us on Bluesky Social at @themaneland.bsky.social or follow Orlando City’s official Twitter (@OrlandoCitySC) or Bluesky (@OrlandoCitySC) feed.

Enjoy the match. Go City!

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