Kansas City, KA (My Sportsbook) - The Kansas City Wizards return to Major League Soccer action for the first time since a 6-0 loss to Dallas on Aug. 1 when they host the Chicago Fire at CommunityAmerica Ballpark on Sunday afternoon.

The game will mark the first with Technical Director Peter Vermes running the bench as the interim head coach after the dismissal of Curt Onalfo following the Wizard's 5-7-6 start to the season. The embarrassing loss at Dallas was apparently the last straw in Onalfo's up-and-down two-plus year tenure. He was 27-29-22 as head coach of the Wizards.

"The big thing is we're moving forward," Vermes said. "It's pretty simple; we realize we have 12 games left. The fact of the matter is, as results are important, right now, performance is even more important. As an organization, the thing that we're going to have to - and I think the players are on the same page with this - we have to better our performance on the field."

"If you look at all of our results, I think that's the worst result we've given up in like 10 years," Wizards captain Jimmy Conrad said. "I think the 6-0 makes it a little bit more immediate that you have to look at the situation."

There figures to be a lot of changes in tactics, formation and personnel as Vermes tries to iron out the team's recent struggles.

"I honestly don't know [what we'll do]." Vermes said after dismissing Onalfo on Aug. 4. "We've been toying around with a lot of different ideas. One of the things we told the guys was that we're just going to work from how everything goes over the next two weeks and slowly build towards what we think is the right group of guys to step on the field."

Chicago (8-4-8) is also trying to rebound from a tough loss, 3-2 at Houston last Saturday to cap off their third game of the week.

"I'm real proud of the group, especially in the second half," Fire coach Denis Hamlett said. "The third game in a week, and they pushed it to the limit. We got handcuffed with making two subs due to injuries. There were a lot of guys that plugged in and left it on the field. We will go home and regroup and get ready for another important stretch."

Chicago, which sits just four points back of Eastern Conference leaders Columbus heading into the weekend action, is disappointed with its last result after thinking it had earned a tough road point, but had a late penalty called against it.

"The only important thing is wins and losses," Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "We'll look at the mistakes we made at the back and go from there. The bottom line is we should've tied the game 2-2. Everybody out there knows it should've ended 2-2 no matter what team they're on, and it's very disappointing on our end that it didn't end 2-2."

The Fire will be playing without forward Brian McBride and defenders Gonzalo Segares, Daniel Woolard, Tim Ward, while defender Wilman Conde and John Thorrington are questionable, all with injuries.

The Wizards will be without attacker Davy Arnaud because of a suspension due to yellow card accumulation, while defender Chance Myers and Kevin Souter are out with injuries.