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After a bizarre 24-hours, the United Soccer League has announced that Saturday’s USL Cup playoff game between the (#4) Swope Park Rangers and (#8) Sacramento Republic will be played in Kansas City after all.
If you missed the drama yesterday, for reasons that still haven’t been fully explained, the USL moved the home game from KC to Sacramento citing “challenges that arose at Children’s Mercy Victory Field.” What those challenges were aren’t clear. It did rain very hard and there were lightening strikes all around the area, but that’s hardly the fault of the Swope Park Rangers and the field appeared to be in great shape on Sunday when the postponed match between Phoenix Rising and SPR resumed.
Regardless, Saturday’s and any subsequent 2017 USL Playoff games will be held at Children’s Mercy Park instead of the much smaller Children’s Mercy Victory Field. The league also added the following:
“The League would like to thank the ownership and the executive teams of both the Swope Park Rangers and Sacramento Republic FC for their professionalism and commitment to the game. The USL sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience caused to the supporters of the Swope Park Rangers and Sacramento Republic FC, and to the players and partners of both organizations.”
The Rangers look to continue their success at home in the playoffs. They have made the playoffs both years of their existence and are undefeated at home in the playoffs (4-0). They also played quite well at home during the regular season going 11-2-3. Their lone playoff loss was last years USL Cup in New Jersey against the New York Red Bulls II.
The team will still likely be without regular starting goalkeeper Adrian Zendejas as he will most likely be with Sporting Kansas City in their road playoff game on Thursday against Houston. Other SPR turned SKC players, like Kevin Oliveira and James Musa, were with the senior team last Sunday. Surprisingly Sporting KC loaned out both Amer Didic and Erik Palmer-Brown for the first round of the USL Cup playoffs and the same could happen again Saturday.
Saturday’s game will go down at 4:00 PM CT. Here is to hoping some Sporting KC fans come out and support the Rangers in their quest for a championship.