KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Burnt ends vs. Toasted ravioli. The Gateway to the West vs. Westport.
When you start talking about differences between Kansas City and St. Louis you’re bound to start wading into some rivalry talk.
And the ingredients are there for a new one.
FOX4’s Jacob Kittilstad reports from Children’s Mercy Park where Sporting Kansas City will host game two of their MLS play-off match-up against St. Louis this Sunday.
Sporting needs to win one more game to advance.
And Major League Soccer appears to be promoting a rivalry too – having these teams potentially play each other up to six times this year now.
But you hear differing opinions from fans. But Mitch Morice with the fan group St. Louligans explains the situation from their perspective.
“We don’t really think about Kansas City as a rival per se. But I have a feeling that’s going to change this year,” Morice said.
“We’ve played Kansas City at multiple levels. You know, there was Swope Park in USL. We played Sporting in the US Open Cup our first year we came out there. And this big bad MLS team only beat us 1-0 and Graham Zusi shushed our corner because we were too loud for him. So there is a little bit of a friendly love/hate there.”
Carlos Restrepo is president of the Latino-forward fan group STL Santos.
“I don’t think you need to rush things. I think this is all happening organically,” Restrepo said.
“I hope it never gets to the level of Latin America – of Colombia where I’m from – where I couldn’t come with my dad to a game together because he was from the other team and I was from the other team.”
“You couldn’t hang out with people who were wearing the other jersey during the game – you had to be separated all the time. I don’t want it to be like that. When Kansas came to St. Louis a lot of people from the Hispanic support group came and hung out with us and we hung out with them when we went over there. And I really appreciate that about the MLS,” Restrepo said.
Game two of the play-off series is set for 4 o’clock Sunday afternoon.