KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- The Kansas City Wizards are on a mission: a mission for points and a mission for wins. And it is with that determination that they will take the field Wednesday evening at Shawnee Mission North High School in Overland Park, Kan. for their Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup play-in game against the Colorado Rapids. The winner of the match will advance to the round-of-16 in the 95-year-old tournament.
In Major League Soccer play, the Wizards have not won since April 20, their only win to go with three defeats and a draw in their last five. But during their off weekend, Kansas City got back in the win column by taking the inaugural New Mexico Cup in Albuquerque, N.M., with a 2-0 win against CSD Municipal of Guatemala.
"Considering the situation that we're in in the league right now where we've dropped a few games, certainly we'd like to get back on the winning track," said midfielder Kerry Zavagnin of the Wizards' sixth-place standing in MLS's Eastern Conference. "Something as little as a win in an exhibition this weekend has done a little bit to push us in the right direction. Success tomorrow night will be important for us going forward into the league, especially into Salt Lake [City on Saturday] where we need to get points right now."
In the Municipal win, Colombian forward Ivan Trujillo scored twice on headers six minutes apart late in first half.
"We created a few more chances [than recently]. We got a few more guys into advance positions, and that helped us at the end," said Zavagnin.
Against Municipal, there was some subtle maneuvering in the Wizards midfield that worked "excellent" in its first time out, according to head coach Curt Onalfo.
"We still play a 4-4-2; we're just flatting out a little more at times to get better wide play," Onalfo said. "We haven't been happy with the wide play for a long time now. We've dominated games this year, and we haven't got enough out of it. In my mind, we're just not dangerous enough down the flanks. We're going to make sure that's a little better, and the little tweak in the formation has helped."
Davy Arnaud, Jack Jewsbury, Zavagnin, and Carlos Marinelli manned the midfield Saturday with Arnaud and Marinelli garnering the assists on Trujillo's tallies.
"Naturally [the outside midfielders] will be farther up the field. Now they're in positions more where they can be more dangerous. Once we're there, we have to make sure we do well with the ball," Onalfo said.
However, Marinelli and midfielder Sasha Victorine, are "just coming back from slight injuries" and are not likely to be in the starting XI against the Rapids, who the Wizards met April 5 in their second league match of the season. Kansas City defeated the current Western Conference leaders 3-2, with two goals from Jimmy Conrad and the winner from Scott Sealy.
The last time they played in the Open Cup proper, in 2006, the Wizards fell 2-0 to the eventual champion Chicago Fire in the fourth round after a win against a PDL side. A year ago, they were knocked out at the first play-in stage in MLS qualification. The last real success they had was in 2004, when Kansas City hoisted the Dewar Cup.
But this year's tournament could mean more than ever. The game is the first "home" match the Wizards have had in nearly two months and it represents another chance for the Wizards to get back in the win column; a chance they don't want to miss.
"Regardless of where we go or what surface we play on, we want to get points, and we want to climb our way back into a good position in the standings in the league but also have success in the Open Cup," said Zavagnin.
"The approach is to try to win," said Onalfo. "It's a business all about results, and we've played very well over the past four games and haven't gotten results. We played very well this past weekend and got a result. So we just continue to plug away knowing that we have a very hard game and we're ready for it."
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