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Seattle tries to continue dominance over Kansas City

Aug 5, 2011 - 1:35 PM Kansas City, KS (Sports Network) - Sporting Kansas City has a lot to live up to on Saturday against Seattle Sounders FC if the club wants to match its performance from Wednesday's 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake.

"This was probably the best 90-minute performance that we've played all year," said Sporting head coach Peter Vermes on Wednesday's victory. "From the opening whistle it just showed the commitment of the guys right off the bat. We started from where we left off in the last game from where we were pushing."

Wednesday's effort was a dramatic change from a lackluster 1-1 draw with New England the game prior, with Sporting needing a late goal to salvage a draw against the Revs.

But against RSL, Sporting showed a great work rate, especially in midfield, and put together a complete performance over 90 minutes that shows why this is one of the hottest teams in MLS.

The result extended Kansas City's unbeaten streak to 14 games and moved the club within four points of the top spot in the Eastern Conference.

In particular, the play of midfielder Roger Espinoza was a big reason for the result as he scored a goal and created a bunch of other chances in the first half before he was sent off in the 57th minute.

Espinoza will now miss the match with Seattle on Saturday, but fellow midfielder Jeferson will try to pick up the slack with another good performance.

The Brazilian has been a big addition in the center of the field since arriving as a Designated Player last month, and if his first three games in a Sporting uniform are any indication, the club is getting good value on its investment.

Seattle had a nice unbeaten run of its own going until a 3-1 defeat at the Houston Dynamo last weekend halted its nine-game unblemished mark.

The Sounders had given up five goals in the previous two games but still managed wins because of a high-powered attack.

However, goalkeeper Kasey Keller believes the club's defensive issues finally caught up with them, and that it is an area that must be addressed.

"I think we've been a little bit shaky defensively for a few weeks now and we just finally got to a point where we couldn't outscore the opponent," Keller said. "We've got to clean that up in our game and we've been talking about it for the last several weeks and today we got punished because of it."

But things got better on Wednesday in CONCACAF Champions League play as Seattle overcame a 1-0 deficit from the first leg to win 2-0 extra time against San Francisco FC of Panama in the return fixture.

Coming off of that good result Seattle will now try to start a new unbeaten streak, while also continuing a good run of results against Kansas City, a team that the Sounders have beaten five straight times in all competitions.