Sporting Kansas City vs. Austin FC
2025 MLS Regular Season | Match 29
Sunday, Sept. 7 | 6 p.m. CT (6:12 kickoff)
Children's Mercy Park | Kansas City, Kansas
Watch: MLS Season Pass or Apple TV+ | Pub Partners
Listen: 94.5 FM or 1510 AM | SKC App
More: Know Before You Go | 5 Things | By the Numbers | Game Notes
Sporting Kansas City will host Austin FC in Major League Soccer's Match of the Week at 6 p.m. CT on Sunday at Children's Mercy Park.
Tickets for the Western Conference match-up are available via SeatGeek, including the Coca-Cola Family & Friends 4-Pack featuring four Price Chopper South Stand seats, four 20-ounce Coca-Cola products and four hot dogs for only $100. Youth and plush items will be 25% off on Sunday at SportingStyle, which will also release a new Victory Project crewneck sweatshirt with 100% of the proceeds supporting Sporting's philanthropic foundation.
Match title night partner Compass Minerals will give away custom teddy bears adorned with the team’s One KC jerseys to children on the Mazuma Plaza while supplies last prior to kickoff. The highly-anticipated gameday comes during Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and this year’s Kick Childhood Cancer theme night features several special festivities as the club celebrates past Victory Project Honorees.
Both sides enter Sunday's showdown coming off multi-goal wins a week ago. Sporting staged a second-half comeback to secure a 4-2 victory over Colorado for the club’s 300th home victory in all competitions. Dejan Joveljic struck twice and now has a team-leading 16 goals this season -- tied for third most in MLS and third most in a single regular season in club history -- while Daniel Salloi scored his seventh goal of the season to move into a share of second place on the team's all-time scoring chart with 67 career goals across all competitions.
Austin FC, who will play in the U.S. Open Cup semifinals for the first time in club history later this month, earned a 3-1 victory over San Jose to climb to seventh place in the Western Conference standings with seven regular season games remaining. Designated Player Osman Bukari (three goals, seven assists) -- who scored the only goal in Austin's 1-0 win over SKC in the season opener on Feb. 22 -- and 20-year-old Owen Wolff (four goals, six assists) -- the son of Sporting Legend Josh Wolff -- combined for the opening goal in Austin's win last weekend and the duo are tied for the team lead in goal contributions with 10.
Defensively, Sporting's John Pulskamp (97 saves) and Austin's Brad Stuver lead all Western Conference goalkeepers in saves. Stuver, who led the league in saves in 2023 and 2024, has started in 107 consecutive regular season matches dating back to July 2022 -- a streak that began against SKC -- and last weekend he became the second goalkeeper in MLS history, alongside Sporting Legend Tony Meola (1996-2000) to record 600 saves in a five-year span.
Led by head coach Nico Estévez, Austin FC features several familiar faces with ties to Sporting KC. Assistant coach Davy Arnaud spent 10 seasons in Kansas City from 2002-2011 and was inducted as a Sporting Legend in 2022. Austin FC captain Ilie Sanchez played his first five MLS seasons for Sporting KC from 2017-2021, while forward Diego Rubio spent three years with Sporting KC from 2016-2018. On the opposite side, SKC midfielder Memo Rodriguez spent the second half of the 2023 season with Austin FC before leading Sporting Kansas City with six assists during the 2024 regular season.
While Sporting KC will be without a pair of players in Zorhan Bassong (Canada) and Ian James (U.S. U-17's) due to national team duty, the visitors will travel to Kansas City without six of the team's internationals -- Micah Burton (U.S. U-20's), Julio Cascante (Costa Rica), Jimmy Farkarlun (Liberia), Daniel Pereira (Venezuela), Oleksandr Svatok (Ukrainee) and Myrto Uzuni (Albania) -- as Austin FC looks to snap a streak that has seen the home side win each of the last six meetings in the series.
The MLS Matchday 32 finale will be available to watch in English (Jake Zivin and Taylor Twellman) and Spanish (Sammy Sadovnik and Diego Valeri) with an MLS Season Pass or Apple TV+ subscription while local radio coverage will air on ESPN Kansas City 94.5 FM or 1510 AM (Blake Aerni and Jon Kempin). Pub partners in the Sporting Pub Network will also show all of the action, including a SKCvATX watch party at No Other Pub in the Kansas City Power & Light district featuring $4 domestic drafts, $5 wells and 50% off nachos for fans in SKC gear starting at 4 p.m. on Sunday.
