Peter Vermes urged his Sporting Kansas City players to take responsibility for their own position ahead of the upcoming MLS road trip to Colorado Rapids.
SKC ended a three-game losing streak with a 2-0 victory over Austin FC in their last encounter, just their second victory in 15 league games.
Kansas City are still bottom of the Western Conference and 11 points adrift of the playoff spots, though Vermes is desperate for fighting spirit ahead of a testing schedule.
"We can't wait, we have a lot of games that are important coming up," SKC head coach Vermes said at his pre-match media availability.
"Each game has its own importance to it, this all started last week but we need to keep going.
"We go in with a plan, we have an idea, it sometimes comes down to how the guys recover. Hopefully no one gets injured, but also just minutes – it's going to be really important.
"Each guy himself has to be ready for the responsibility of the position and knowing what we do when we have the ball, when we don't, they have to go into the game with that.
"We don't have a lot of training time in between games, so they all have to be ready for that."
The Burgundy Boys will be out to extend their home unbeaten run to five games in this clash, though they suffered a 3-0 defeat to Los Angeles FC last time out on the road.
Colorado are fourth in the West standings but nine points adrift of the top two, a gap they will hope to shorten at Dick's Sporting Goods Park.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Colorado Rapids – Rafael Navarro
Rafael Navarro has scored in each of his last five home appearances for the Rapids, and will fancy his chances of extending an impressive run this time around.
The only players with a longer streak in regular-season play in Colorado's history are Diego Rubio (six in 2022) and Mark Chung (also six in 2003).
Sporting Kansas City – William Agada
Goals have been hard to come by for the Kansas City side, with William Agada leading the way this season in MLS with five strikes.
Agada has managed that tally from 20 games, averaging a goal every four matches, but will hope to add to his scoring returns in Colorado.
MATCH PREDICTION – COLORADO RAPIDS WIN
The Rapids are the favourites for victory on home soil in this clash, owing to a remarkable head-to-head record in meetings between this pair.
Colorado are unbeaten in 10 straight regular-season home matches against SKC (W5 D5) and have lost only two of their 28 home league matches against them since August 2000 (W13 D13).
This will also be Colorado’s third Independence Day meeting with Sporting, having won in both 2003 and 2005, with the expectation that history will repeat itself here.
SKC are hardly in fine form either, having managed just their second win last time out in their previous 15 MLS matches (D2 L11).
However, they managed the club's first clean sheet since a scoreless draw at LAFC on March 9, and will hope to build on that performance here.
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
Colorado Rapids win – 48.2%
Draw – 25.9%
Sporting Kansas City win – 25.9%
Cooper sacked by Leicester after winless run
Leicester City have dismissed manager Steve Cooper after a run of four Premier League games without a win.
Cooper, who previously managed Leicester's rivals Nottingham Forest, only took charge of the Foxes for 15 games in all competitions.
He was appointed in June, after Enzo Maresca left to join Chelsea following Leicester's promotion back to the Premier League.
After going six league games without a win at the start of the season, Cooper appeared to have steadied the ship with victories over Bournemouth and Southampton.
However, a winless streak of four top-flight matches, in which Leicester lost to Forest, Manchester United and Chelsea, while drawing with Ipswich Town, has seen Cooper lose his position.
In a statement released on Sunday, Leicester confirmed Cooper's assistants Alan Tate and Steve Rands had also left the club, with Ben Dawson set to take charge until a replacement is appointed.
Former Brighton and Chelsea boss Graham Potter was reportedly in talks to join Leicester prior to Cooper's appointment in the summer.
The Foxes are 16th in the Premier League on 10 points after 12 games.
Southampton 2-3 Liverpool: Salah brace sends Reds eight points clear
Liverpool went eight points clear at the top of the Premier League as they came from behind to seal a thrilling 3-2 victory over Southampton at St Mary's.
Two second-half goals from Mohamed Salah turned Sunday's game on its head after Mateus Fernandes had given bottom club Southampton a surprise 2-1 lead.
Dominik Szoboszlai had given Liverpool a 30th-minute lead by curling home via the far post after Flynn Downes' dreadful clearance landed at his feet inside the area.
However, the outstanding Tyler Dibling was felled by Andrew Robertson for a Southampton penalty on the stroke of half-time. Adam Armstrong's spot-kick was repelled by Caoimhin Kelleher, but the striker kept his nerve to tuck home the equaliser.
Armstrong then turned provider when Fernandes swept home Southampton's second in the 56th minute, but their lead would not last.
Salah cushioned a searching Ryan Gravenberch pass beyond a stranded Alex McCarthy for 2-2 in the 65th minute, then saw his inswinging cross handled by Southampton substitute Yukinari Sugawara seven minutes from time.
The Egyptian scored what proved to be the winner from the resulting penalty, and he almost got a hat-trick when he crashed a shot off the base of the post in the 88th minute.
Southampton remain bottom of the table, five points adrift of 17th-placed Wolves. Liverpool, meanwhile, are sitting pretty ahead of next week’s meeting with Manchester City, who were routed 4-0 by Tottenham on Saturday.
Data Debrief: Salah helps Slot into history books
Despite a lacklustre defensive performance, Liverpool earned their 10th victory in 12 Premier League games this season (one draw, one defeat), thanks primarily to Salah's quality in attack.
Salah has become the first Liverpool player to score in five successive Premier League games since the Egyptian himself did so in seven straight matches in October 2021.
His penalty, meanwhile, was his 100th goal away from Anfield for the Reds across all competitions.
Slot has now joined former Chelsea bosses Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti as the fastest managers to reach 10 Premier League wins upon their arrival in the division.
Chelsea shake off fatigue against Man Utd to extend winning run
Chelsea had to overcome fatigue, and survive a late scare, to beat Manchester United 1-0 in the Women's Super League on Sunday.
Guru Reiten's 17th-minute penalty proved decisive at Kingsmeadow in a rearranged fixture that was postponed earlier in the campaign due to Chelsea's Champions League exploits.
United came close to ending Sonia Bompastor's remarkable winning run and keeping their unbeaten start going when Melvine Malard's effort clattered the crossbar, but Chelsea escaped unscathed to move five points clear of Manchester City at the top.
The Blues are just the second team in WSL history to win their first eight games of a season, after Arsenal in 2018-19.
And Bompastor was particularly pleased with how her team, who mustered 2.1 expected goals (xG) to United's 0.2, shrugged off the tiredness to get the job done.
"I think it was a tough game today, we were expecting that," Bompastor told the media, as reported by the Press Association.
"United do not concede a lot of goals so we knew they were coming with a good defensive organisation, and we had to have a really good game with the ball.
"Especially with the wind today, it was difficult for us to build and to play more, so I am just a bit disappointed at the fact we couldn't play more.
"Sometimes the most important thing is to get the three points, especially because we have been in a run playing five games in two weeks. I think the players are a little bit fatigued as well."
Chelsea have now won 11 consecutive WSL matches, which is their longest-ever winning run in the competition. The last team to have a longer winning run in the competition were Man City last season between November and April (14 in a row).
Maika Hamano and Sjoeke Nusken had early opportunities for the Blues, before Mayra Ramirez was brought down by United's Phallon Tullis-Joyce, who was unable to keep out Reiten's composed spot-kick.
Reiten has now netted six goals in her eight WSL appearances this term.
Johanna Rytting Kaneryd wasted a good chance to put Chelsea further in front, when she elected to shoot rather than pass and her effort was blocked by Maya Le Tissier.
That profligacy might have proved costly in stoppage time, but the woodwork came to Chelsea's rescue after Malard got a shot off following a neat bit of skill to evade Millie Bright.
"Chelsea are the best team in the country, they're the champions for a reason. We said we would give everything from the off and the players have given everything," said United boss Marc Skinner, who was without injured striker Elisabeth Terland.
"Both teams had to play the conditions, but the pride I feel for the team and their commitment to what we're doing, and know we can do, I'm proud of their performance. For us it was about being calculated and always opening up more in the second half, we changed shape in the last 15 minutes to really give an attacking threat.
"We opened up, Chelsea took a few more opportunities. You have to balance the game, you go toe-to-toe with Chelsea and they probably win against most teams."
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