Sporting Kansas City head coach Raphael Wicky has urged his side to keep working after ending their eight-game winless run.

Following a 6-0 loss to the Portland Timbers, which was their seventh defeat in eight games across all competitions, Sporting KC bounced back with a 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Capita, Dejan Joveljic and Calvin Harris got on the scoresheet in what was Kansas City's second win of the season, with the other also coming against the Galaxy.

Wicky praised his side's resilience to bounce back from their heavy defeat to Portland, but has urged them to stay focused ahead of their trip to Austin FC this weekend.

"I have to say, it feels good to sit here after a win," said Raphael Wicky.

"It's been too long to wait for this, but I'm very proud of the reaction of the team.

"I think the results we are coming off of, or at least the last one, it's not easy to react like that. I'm very proud of the reaction, the way the team competed and how they put a great performance on the field.

"With the great performance, obviously came a good result, an amazing result. It’s just really important that we keep working.

"That the players keep working on themselves to stay concentrated and focused for as long as they can, because that has been a problem in our team."

Austin's struggles this season were compounded after a 5-0 defeat to San Diego FC on Wednesday.

It was Austin's largest defeat in club history, leaving them 13th in the Western Conference.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

Austin FC – Myrto Uzuni

Uzuni has scored in each of his last three regular-season matches at Q2 Stadium after totalling just three goals in his first 17 home league matches with Austin.

Only Sebastian Driussi has scored in four straight home league games in club history (streaks of five in 2022 and four in 2021-22).

Sporting Kansas City – Dejan Joveljic

Joveljic scored his 24th regular-season goal with Kansas City in his 44th game with the club.

Joveljic’s 0.55 goals per game rate with KC is the club’s second-highest mark among players with multiple games played, behind Miklos Molnar’s 0.71 goals per game (12 goals in 17 games).

MATCH PREDICTION – AUSTIN FC WIN

Austin have won all five of their home matches against Kansas City, tied for Austin’s longest home winning streak in club history across all competitions (also against the Houston Dynamo).

Kansas City have one longer road regular-season losing streak in the post-shoot-out era (seven straight at Portland, 2019-26).

However, Sporting ended a 17-match run without a multi-goal win in all competitions, Kansas City’s longest stretch since an 18-match run from April to July 2019.

Austin's 5-0 loss at San Diego was the second time in five games that Austin allowed five goals in a match (1-5 at San Jose on April 22), after doing so just once in their previous 70 games in all competitions.

OPTA WIN PROBABILITY

Austin FC – 57.3%

Draw – 22.2%

Sporting Kansas City – 20.5%