Sporting Kansas City vs. New York City FC
2025 MLS Regular Season | Match 23
Saturday, July 19 | 7:30 p.m. CT (7:40 kickoff)
Children's Mercy Park | Kansas City, Kansas
Watch: MLS Season Pass on Apple TV | Pub Partners
Listen: 810 AM | 103.7 FM | SKC App
More: Know Before You Go | 5 Things | By the Numbers | Game Notes
Sporting Kansas City will host New York City FC for the first time in seven years in a cross-conference clash set for 7:30 p.m. CT on Saturday at Children's Mercy Park.
Tickets are available without fees at SeatGeek -- including the Coca-Cola Family & Friends 4-Pack featuring four Price Chopper South Stand tickets, four 20-ounce Coca-Cola products and four hamburgers for only $100 -- and all attendees will be allowed to enter SKCvNYC with one 20-ounce or smaller sealed bottle of water. SportingStyle's featured item of the game is an SKC Hot Dog Scarf, released this week on National Hot Dog Day, and Children's Mercy Park concessions will offer $4 value menu hot dogs on Saturday.
New York City FC last played in Kansas City on March 4, 2018 and each team now has only one remaining player that featured in the match: Sporting KC forward Daniel Salloi and New York City FC midfielder Maxi Moralez. Salloi, who will celebrate his 29th birthday on Saturday, has 102 MLS goal contributions (57 goals, 45 assists) in 10 seasons with SKC while Moralez, who has started all 22 games this year at age 38, has 121 MLS goal contributions (35 goals, 86 assists) in nine seasons in New York.
The visitors arrive in Kansas City amidst a four-game road trip and are coming off a dramatic 2-1 win in Orlando on Wednesday with goals in the 87th and 91st minutes. Alonso Martinez scored the game-winner - after scoring twice in the Gold Cup for Costa Rica -- and leads MLS in expected goals per 90 minutes played. He is NYCFC's joint top scorer alongside Hannes Wolf, who has appeared in 56 consecutive regular season matches since joining NYCFC last season.
Defensively, NYCFC is anchored by Designated Player Thiago Martins in central defense and U.S. Men's National Team goalkeeper Matt Freese, who started all six games for the U.S. at this summer's Gold Cup. The duo will be up against a Sporting Kansas City offense that recorded its highest expected goals value of the season last week (3.07) in a 3-2 loss to Seattle thanks to penalty conversions from Dejan Joveljic and Santiago Munoz.
Joveljic has a goal or assist in eight consecutive regular season matches, the longest streak in MLS this season and the second longest in club history. The Serbian striker has 34 goals in MLS play since the start of 2024 -- including a game-winning goal in the LA Galaxy's 2-0 win over NYCFC last June -- which ranks second best in MLS behind Lionel Messi.
Saturday's showdown will be a match-up of first-year MLS managers as Sporting KC's Kerry Zavagnin (6-6-4) and New York City FC's Pascal Jansen (10-8-4) go head to head. Each side will be missing a pair of players as NYCFC's Malachi Jones has been out more than a year with a right tibia fracture while Keaton Parks has been sidelined since the end of May with a foot injury. Similarly, Sporting Kansas City defender Dany Rosero has been out since late May with an ankle injury and forward Erik Thommy will miss a second straight game with a hip injury.
SKCvNYC will be available to watch on Apple TV with an MLS Season Pass subscription in English (Mark Followill and Warren Barton) and Spanish (Sergio Ruiz and Walter Roque). Pub partners in the Sporting Pub Network will also show all of the action and live radio coverage will air locally on 810 AM and 103.7 FM (Blake Aerni and Jon Kempin).
