Preview | Sporting Kansas City vs. LAFC - 2026 MLS Season

Saturday, September 12 | 5:30 p.m. PT

🏟 | Sporting Park - Kansas City, MO

🖥 | WATCH: Apple TV, Coupang Play (Korea), SpoTV (Korea), Local Bar Partners

📻 | LISTEN: 710 AM ESPN, ESPN LA App, Sirius XM Ch. 95, KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera (Spanish), & KYPA 1230 AM (Korean)

Coming off a midweek home victory over Red Bull New York, LAFC travels to Kansas City to face Sporting KC on Saturday night at Sporting Park. 

With nine matches remaining in the regular season, points are at a premium, and this weekend’s trip to Missouri presents a golden opportunity for LAFC to gain three during a particularly challenging stretch of road matches. LAFC, which sits in third place in the Western Conference, could tie second-place Houston on points if the Black & Gold defeats a struggling SKC side – and if the Dynamo fall on the road against fifth-place San Jose on Saturday night. The second part of that equation is out of LAFC’s hands. Head coach Marc Dos Santos is focused on the first part. 

“At this time of the year, it's not a situation that we can change,” Dos Santos told the media on Friday. “We knew this would be a month with a lot of away games and you have to get points. We keep on stressing that as a group, we have to get points.” 

LAFC earned three points on Wednesday by defeating RBNY 2-0, with Jude Terry and Armindo Sieb each scoring his first career goal at BMO Stadium, and the Black & Gold setting a new club record with its 13th MLS clean sheet of 2026. LAFC improved to 11W-7L-7D in MLS regular-season play and is now unbeaten in four straight.

Hugo Lloris recorded his 12th clean sheet of the MLS season, placing him first among all MLS goalkeepers. No goalkeeper has more total clean sheets than the French World Cup champion since he joined LAFC before the 2024 season. 

Wednesday also marked the return of midfielder Igor Jesus, who played the final 30 minutes after spending a year recovering from a knee injury he suffered in August 2025.

Sporting KC sits in 15th place in the West (4W-16L-3D), having struggled on all fronts this season. Hope arrived last weekend when SKC “managed one of their best attacking outings of the year, spurred on by new winger André Luiz's first start,” according to ESPN.com, but Kansas City fell 4-3 on road in Dallas thanks to a late penalty by FC Dallas striker Petar Musa.

Taylor Calheira scored two goals for SKC in the loss, the first two goals of the 24-year-old Maryland native’s career. Fellow newcomers Emir Karic and Kwaku Agyabeng logged their first MLS assists as SKC recorded season highs in goals, expected goals, shots and shots on target.

LAFC has not lost to SKC in 11 straight games in the series (9W-0L-2D), including an extra-time victory in the 2024 U.S. Open Cup Final. LAFC earned a 4-0 victory over SKC in July with Denis Bouanga scoring two goals and Son Heung-Min and recently-departed David Martínez (transferred to Danish club Midtjylland) adding one goal each.

MAKING HISTORY

Bouanga (77 career MLS regular-season goals) is set to overtake Carlos Vela (78) atop the Black & Gold’s all-time league scoring chart. Last year Bouanga surpassed Vela as the club’s leading goal scorer across all competitions; he currently has 120 total goals for the Black & Gold. In his career Bouanga has scored four goals against Sporting KC.

LAFC WILL WIN IF

Dos Santos’ starting eleven pushes enough to score the first goal. It’s a common refrain at this point, but LAFC is a hard team to beat once they get the upper hand on the scoreboard. Nearly impossible, in fact. Including Wednesday night’s win over RBNY, the Black & Gold is 11W-0L-2D in MLS play this year when scoring first, and 16W-0L-3D in all competitions.

SPORTING KC CAN WIN IF

LAFC’s roster rotation creates a vulnerability that the home side can exploit. Compromised by injury and roster churn, LAFC has had to play jenga with its starting eleven recently. Defender Yevhen Cheberko filled in admirably in the midfield against RBNY at midweek, playing a key role in both LAFC goals, but Jesus’ return in central midfield was huge. With Timmy Tillman and Ryan Porteous also preparing to re-enter the fray, the window for opponents to take advantage of LAFC’s player availability challenges is closing fast.

 ===

MLS NEXT PRO ON SUNDAY:

On Sunday, LAFC2 – the Black & Gold’s MLS NEXT Pro side - will face Sporting Kansas City II at 5:00 p.m. PT at Swope Soccer Village in Kansas City. The Black & Gold’s developmental “second team” is nearing a playoff berth. The match will be streamed on MLSNEXTPro.com.