Alan Kelly is the referee, Ian Anderson and Apolinar Mariscal are his assistants and Drew Fischer is the fourth official.
Seattle is hosting its season opener for the eighth consecutive time — the entirety of the club’s MLS tenure — having gone 5-2-0 with a 12-2 goal differential in those matches.
The Sounders are 7-2-3 all-time against Sporting Kansas City, including a 1-0 win in the 2014 season opener at CenturyLink. On six occasions in this series, Seattle has scored in the 90th minute or later, and all 12 meetings have been decided by one goal or fewer. 11 of the 12 matches have produced three combined goals or fewer.
Sporting reached the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season in 2015, but barely, qualifying as the sixth-and-final Western Conference seed and falling to Portland on penalties in the play-in round.
2016 marks Kansas City’s second season in the West after spending the previous decade in the Eastern Conference. Sporting and the Houston Dynamo shifted over to make room for expansion clubs Orlando City and New York City FC.
And below are the lineups for both teams, with second-year midfielder Cristian Roldan getting the start in place of Erik Friberg, who suffered a head injury in CONCACAF Champions League earlier this week, and Oniel Fisher replacing Tyrone Mears, who has a quad strain:
Seattle starting XI: Frei; Fisher, Evans, Marshall, J. Jones; Alonso, Roldan, Ivanschitz; Morris, Valdez, Dempsey. Sounders subs: Miller, Remick, Scott, Sturgis, Kovar, D. Jones, Anderson.
Kansas City starting XI: Melia; Dia, Besler, Coelho, Myers; Mustivar, Espinoza, Quintilla; Zusi, Dwyer, Hallisey. Sporting subs: Salloi, Peterson, Medranda, Olum, Ellis, Abdul-Salaam, Kann.
Link : http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/sounders/lineups-and-notes-cristian-roldan-oniel-fisher-start-the-sounders-mls-season-opener/
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