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St. Louis City SC can keep their remote playoff hopes alive on Saturday by defeating a visiting Sporting Kansas City side that is already eliminated from contention.

St. Louis (6-11-13, 31 points) begin the weekend 11 points beneath the playoff line with four games to play, meaning they need to win all of the remaining matches and get significant help from teams higher in the standings to keep those hopes flickering.

That’s very unlikely. But seeing continued improvement since the dismissal of Bradley Carnell and appointment of interim manager John Hackworth is a more manageable goal, and it’s one Hackworth believes he saw in last weekend’s 2-1 win at the San Jose Earthquakes.

Summer signing Cedric Teuchert was again key to a promising performance, scoring his fourth goal in only six matches to pull within one of the team lead.

“I know I sound like a broken record sometimes when I talk about progress but getting our first win on the road this year, that’s definite progress,” Hackworth said after the game. “Doing it in the fashion that we did it tonight, absolute progress. It wasn’t pretty. In particular, there were phases of that game, the end of the first half, some moments in the second that did not look great, but I give our guys a lot of credit.”

Kansas City (8-16-7, 31 points) is already eliminated because they have one fewer game remaining. And they will have to overcome a rapid turnaround after losing the U.S. Open Cup final 3-1 to Los Angeles FC in extra time on Wednesday night in Southern California.

Goal-scorer Erik Thommy is one of eight SKC players who played at least 106 minutes. Striker Alan Pulido and winger Johnny Russell — who are both in their 30s — played all 120, which makes both unlikely to start on Saturday.

“I think for us to be able to go away from home and play the way we did, I give the guys a lot of credit,” Kansas City manager Peter Vermes said after the match. “Very proud of the effort the guys put into the game. It never feels good to lose, but I also think that the group did themselves proud in the way they performed tonight.”

–Field Level Media