KC will be missing defensive leader and captain Jimmy Conrad, as well as midfielders Davy Arnaud and Roger Espinoza due to Gold Cup call ups, while Kevin Souter will not be available due to injury. The Dynamo also has its share of vacancies in the starting lineup, missing Brian Ching, Stuart Holden and Andrew Hainault because of the Gold Cup, while Wade Barret, Eddie Robinson, and Craig Waibel are out injured; Ricardo Clark missed his US Cup game due to personal reasons and I am unsure of his availability.

It will be a scrappy battle for tired teams who just got off playing US Cup games and, who after Saturday’s match will again continue to play for the Cup midweek. I do wonder how much offense will be generated from teams that regardless of their mid week results have struggled to score recently and are missing key offensive players such as Ching and Arnaud.

I really can’t predict what the KC lineup might look like with the defense having been exposed against Santos last Sunday and with a midfield that could not contain the fast passing Mexican team. Some posters and bloggers have suggested moving Matt Besler to his more natural center back position instead of struggling Rauwshan McKenzie and slotting Michael Harrington to his natural left back position instead of continuing to place him in the right side of the midfield where he has produced some terrible performances. Also the attacking midfield could see either Kurt Morsink or Graham Zusi there if Harrington does move back to defense. The Morsink/Hirsig midfield does have the interesting option of having them rotate the d-mid position so that Hirsig can move forward and do some more vertical passing like he did in his first game vs. Toronto where he got an assist.

Coach Onalfo might consider Houston’s weakened attack and leave Hohlbein with McKenzie in the middle hoping that they can control the dangerous and speedy Kamara but if Vuoso from Santos gave us fits a faster Kamara could spell trouble. I expect this to be a low scoring affair with either a tie or KC winning by one.

I’m going to throw out 2 possible lineups today:

Hartman
Watson—Hohlbein—McKenzie—Besler
Jewsbury—Hirsig—Morsink/Zusi—Gomez
Wolff—Lopez

OR

Hartman
Watson—Hohlbein—Besler—Harrington
Jewsbury—Hirsig—Morsink/Zusi—Gomez
Wolff—Lopez

KC-2 (Lopez, Wolff)
HOU- 1 (Kamara)

On a side note: Not much going on this holiday weekend and looking to watch a classic movie? Here’s the trailer to one of my favorites; the one and only original Die Hard. If you haven’t seen it (where have you been?) you have to watch it; if you have, watch it again, you can’t get tired of watching John McClaine kill terrorists.

Have a great 4th of July weekend and always keep our guys in gals in the military serving throughout the world in your prayers this Independence Day and every day.