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After 4 weeks, the New England Revolution will finally open their home account this afternoon against Eastern Conference rivals Sporting Kansas CIty. While the Revs are missing a pivotal cog in Jerry Bengtson who is on duty with the Honduras national team, KC is also missing some important players in midfielder Graham Zusi and defender Matt Besler, who are both with the United States national team for their World Cup Qualifying games against Costa Rica and Mexico.
The biggest story is of course Benny Feilhaber's homecoming to Foxborough. As expected, he will start tonight against his former team. Interestingly, the last time the Revs won against Sporting Kansas CIty was almost 2 years ago here at Gillette Stadium where Benny made his Revolution debut and even recorded an assist. It's an interesting match-up and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. That said, let's take a look at the starting lineups:
Revs Starting XI (L to R):
Reis - Alston, Goncalves, Soares, Farrell - Nguyen, Simms, Toja, Caldwell, Rowe - Barrett
Revs Subs: Shuttleworth, Cisse, Tierney, Dorman, Guy, Fagundez, Barnes
Sporting KC Starting XI (L to R):
Neielsen - Sinovic, Collin, Opara, Mechack - Rosell, Nagamura, Feilhaber - Saad, Sapong, Bieler
KC Subs: Kronberg, Gardner, Joseph, Lopez, Olum, Miller, Thomas
In Bengtson's absence, Chad Barrett gets his first start of the 2013 season and, of course, his first start in a Revolution jersey. Although listed on the injury report this week, Matt Reis and Clyde Simms have also been inserted into the starting XI, meanwhile Kalifa Cisse was withheld from starting but has made the game-day 18.
Please join us for this exciting match in our comments section below where we will be discussing throughout! Go Revs!