Sporting Kansas City 3 - 3 Whitecaps
Final
  for this game

Vancouver, Sporting clash without top scorers

Apr 1, 2011 - 9:53 PM Vancouver, BC (Sports Network) - Vancouver Whitecaps FC hosts Sporting Kansas City on Saturday, but both squads will be without leading scorers Eric Hassli and Omar Bravo, respectively, after they were sent off last weekend.

The two designated players marked their Major League Soccer debuts with a pair of goals each two weeks ago in season-opening wins, but both were sent off and their teams paid the price with losses in the second week of the season.

Vancouver (1-1-0) returns to Empire Field for the first time since beating TFC 4-2 in the opening week of the season and hopes to build on the result against Kansas City (1-1-0) this weekend.

Whitecaps FC suffered a 1-0 setback at the Philadelphia Union last weekend and start a stretch of three games in eight days against Sporting. With Hassli out this week, Camilo or Long Tan could start alongside Atiba Harris up front.

In addition, Vancouver gets U.S. defender Jay DeMerit and New Zealand defender Michael Boxall back from international duty. DeMerit played for the U.S. for the first time since the World Cup, while Boxall debuted for New Zealand.

Teitur Thordarson will be happy to have DeMerit back, but he played in both of the Americans' friendlies against Argentina and Paraguay and left the latter with a groin injury that has bothered him for months.

With a tough stretch approaching - Vancouver hosts the New England Revolution on Wednesday and visits the Houston Dynamo on April 10 - Thordarson may have to call on recent addition Mouloud Akloul to spell DeMerit at center back. He was signed earlier this week.

K.C. will have to overcome the loss of its most potent offensive weapon, as it lost Bravo to a straight red card last week in a 3-2 loss at the Chicago Fire. Without Bravo, who scored his two goals in the season-opening 3-2 victory over Chivas USA, coach Peter Vermes will need more players to contribute.

That includes Canadian-born striker Teal Bunbury, who recently decided to play for the U.S. internationally. Bunbury scored one of Sporting's goals last week as it tried to overcome being down a man, but eventually fell short.

Overall, Sporting has to feel good with three points from the first two games of a 10-match road trip to open the season. And with the Chad Ochocinco circus over - he spent six days training with the team - K.C. can focus on getting a result in Canada this weekend.






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