Sporting, Kansas City’s Major League Soccer squad, has been on a 10-game road-trip to begin the season while construction has been under way on its state-of-the-art LIVESTRONG Sporting Park.

The road swing concluded with a 0-0 draw Saturday at Toronto FC.

Now, the squad is eager to step on the home pitch for the first time.

“We are really excited,” Sporting KC goalkeeper Eric Kronberg said. “Obviously it was a long, long trip and I think everybody is excited for the new stadium. All the pictures and videos, then we’ve trained in it a couple of times, it’s amazing. The pitch is perfect and we are all just very excited to play in front of our home fans.

The club certainly hopes its home confines will be more accommodating than the road. Sporting KC struggled mightily at times during the road trip and went 1-6-3. Currently, it is ninth in the Eastern Conference.

Offense has been hard to come by this season, and Saturday was no different. Kansas City mustered just two shots on goal against Toronto, the third time KC has been limited to so few shots this season.

Kronberg was the brightest spot for Kansas City. He recorded the first shutout of his career.

KC played without four regular starters who were absent due to international duty — forward Kei Kamara, midfielder Stephane Auvray and defenders Shavar Thomas and Roger Espinoza.

Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes said the road trip has been tough.

“I think it’s easy to understand the travel and all of that stuff, but one thing that most people don’t take into consideration about those 10 games is that when you’re always the enemy, week in and week out, and you are never home, you lose the connection back to your fans, back to your organization,” Vermes said. “And you almost, as a player, think ‘What are we playing for?’ Because when you come home and you do a good play, everybody cheers and they are on your side — that’s the 12th man. We haven’t had that. I think that disconnect wound up being a little bit of a problem for some time there. I think the guys really honed in on themselves and got really tough and I think, here at the end, they finished well.

“We could be a lot better obviously. We could have won all 10 games, that would be the best thing but that is unrealistic, especially in a league where we have teams that only have two or less wins right now on the road. The only difference is that they have played a lot of games at home as well. For us right now with a chance to come back home is going to be a good step in the right direction.”

Sporting KC will open its new stadium and play its first home game at 9 p.m. Thursday, June 9, against the Chicago Fire. The game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.