Wednesday night at BC Place, the Vancouver Whitecaps will host Sporting KC, as the visitors will look to avenge a 2-1 home loss to the Whitecaps back at the end of May.

Sporting has been struggling this season. Including that loss to the Whitecaps, Kansas had a run of matches where they lost 7 in a row outright, and were winless for a period of 10.

Despite those challenges, Vancouver may very well be finding Sporting in their best form of the season to date, as they have posted 3 wins in their last 4, most recently, back to back wins over FC Dallas and the San Jose Earthquakes. Sure, those aren’t exactly Western Conference powerhouses, but it’s been enough to add a certain air of positivity around the team.

Nigerian striker William Agada has led the way for KC so far this season, with 7 goals and 2 assists over 1089 minutes. Agada, 24, is in his third MLS season with SKC, after putting up big goal tallies as a youngster in Israel. When it comes to play making, MLS veteran Memo Rodriguez has been Sporting’s top performer with 5 assists, Rodriguez also has 2 goals.

Overall though, SKC’s 39 goals for has been far from their downfall, in fact, 1.63 goals per match puts them in the top half of teams in the West. The real problem has been defensively, where Sporting is allowing 2.04 goals per match, 2nd worst across the league.

One reason for this is because Sporting has struggled to settle on a locked-down centreback pairing, with veteran Andreu Fontàs and American Robert Castellanos only recently being dropped in favour of young German CB Robert Voloder and Colombian Daniel Rosero Valencia. Valencia was forced off with an injury against San Jose, but Sporting appears to have found something promising in Voloder, as the former Köln academy graduate may be poised to help solve some of their defensive struggles, and he’s gone the full 90+ in 5 of the last 6 for SKC.

Midfielder Nemanja Radoja has also been a bright spot in recent times. Sporting’s midfield has been utterly dominated at certain points over the season, placing a lot of pressure on that backline, but the Serbian has been filling the number six role brilliantly for SKC as of late, winning tackles and playing the kind of line-breaking passes that Sporting’s strikers tend to thrive on.

Certainly though, coming up to Vancouver will be a much bigger challenge for Sporting. Vancouver is undefeated in their last five matches, and Brian White and Ryan Gauld are possibly in their best form of the season, with White having scored 7 goals in his last 4 matches.

Vancouver will also be looking forward to the full return of players such as Sam Adekugbe and Damir Kreilach, who both came off the bench against St. Louis. Pedro Vite, meanwhile, who was rested against St. Louis, could also be poised to play a big role as Vancouver has asked a lot from Andres Cubas and Seb Berhalter this past week in midfield. Finally, Vanni Sartini appears to have settled on a back three that suits him, so it will be interesting to see if the trio of Utvik-Veselinovic-Laborda stays in tact for this one.

The Whitecaps have not been a great home team this year, but this match feels like a big opportunity to set themselves on the right path. SKC is 2-2-8 on the road this year, and although they have played well recently, that was not against teams of the same calibre as Vancouver. The combination of Sporting’s questionable defence with White and Gauld in prime form has the potential for a big goal-scoring output. That said, if SKC can get the jump on Vancouver early, or grind things out late into proceedings, then anything is possible, this is MLS after all.