Sporting Kansas City learned their group stage opponents for the highly anticipated MLS is Back Tournament on Thursday, slotting into Group D alongside Western Conference rivals Real Salt Lake, the Colorado Rapids and Minnesota United FC. Shortly after the draw took place, Manager and Sporting Director Peter Vermes discusses the historic tournament with national media. His remarks are below.
On being drawn into a group with three familiar opponents…
I think the challenges are the same for all of the teams we haven’t played in a long time. The fact that we won’t be in top form yet and probably will have not played a ton of games prior to that—that’s probably going to be the biggest difficulty. In regards to the group itself and all the groups, it really wouldn’t have mattered who we (drew) in my opinion. I say that because we’re going to have to play everyone anyway at some point coming out of this, as well. However we start, and if you want to get to the final, you’re going to have to face all of the teams anyway. I actually think the groups wound up being pretty good because there are some rivalries in a lot of them, and it’ll probably be good for television.
On how he plans to rotate the roster during the tournament…
I think you go into this (tournament) with the best laid plans, but my experience tells me that you always play your first game, and then you’ll do inventory after that game. You find out where everybody is, you find out what your result was—all of those things will have an impact on the next game. As much as I’d like to think that I can choreograph everything, unfortunately I can’t. It’s more being able to be really adaptable and flexible based on those situations that are going to occur. And then when we get there, we’ll just have to be really good on our feet.
On the benefits of knowing when Sporting will finally return to play…
First off, just getting back to play is fantastic. Having a date, it’s the way that we work in our business. Everything is centered around dates and times, when our next opponent is and where we’re traveling to. You’re always kind of reverse-engineering from that. Having a date, a team to play—all of that is going to help immensely in what we’re trying to get prepared for. Athletes are almost always goal-oriented, so with them now having something to shoot for, it’s going to make it that much more different just in training and how we prepare going forward.
On the impact of having five available substitutes for each match…
The five subs (rule) is very important. It’s more important for us than it’s been for the European leagues starting back up. The reason being is that in Orlando, the temperature is going to be different for all the teams. I think there are six or seven teams—when you take Orlando, Miami, Atlanta, the two (Texas) teams—you start looking at the teams, and they are playing in this (weather) quite often, right? So they’re going to be acclimated pretty much from the start. Everyone else is going to be playing catch-up. We’re starting to get a lot hotter here in Kansas City, but we’re not there yet. The five subs is going to help immensely.
I also think that when you look at it from a strategy perspective—and I know this from when we play a lot of exhibition games in preseason—when you put your starting XI out on the field and make one sub, sometimes it can tilt the scale one way or the other. And when you make two or three subs, same thing. But when you change five guys, it can take the team from in sync to completely out of sync. I believe that will be something that will have to be really calculated and measured as a staff when we make those decisions. Some of them may just be forced upon us because guys may just physically not be able to function.
On whether the five-sub rule will pave the way for younger players to earn minutes…
In some respects, you’re going to have to be prepared to use the full complement of your roster. You may have a game at 8 o’clock at night, and then you may have the next game at 9 a.m. Again, those time differences are going to be a big change, too. We’ll have to function and make solutions for that. Having the full complement of your roster, the great thing is that we’ll have access to it. Then it’s just about keeping the guys healthy.
On whether he worries about the safety of playing and living conditions in Orlando…
I don’t. First off, we’re testing three times a week already—Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We’ve been doing serology tests; we’ve done all that stuff. We’re going to be doing something very similar when we go down there. There’s a testing protocol even around the games, which is a little different. So I feel really comfortable with that aspect. You can try and prepare for all of these different things. I also think that it’s unrealistic to think that you are going to be 100 percent safe. I think it’s even difficult to do that in your home quarantine, because at some point, either somebody’s delivering something to you or you’re going somewhere to get something. Is it 100 percent safe? No, I don’t think so. But I also believe that it’ll be a good, safe environment. I think they’ll try and take all of the precautions necessary.
I also think that we’re going to be in a different place in a month. Look, I’m not a doctor, but all over the country we’re testing more. When you see numbers (of COVID-19 cases) go up, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything than sometimes they’re just testing more in that city or in that state. Obviously you’re going to have more positive cases if you test more people. It’s just part of what goes on. I’m really excited to see what it looks like a month from now when we start playing games, because I think things will be different than what they are today.
On playing in front of no fans during the tournament…
That’ll be strange, but as a player in the early years of this league and on the national team, we didn’t have a lot of fans. So I’ll be able to handle it fine as a coach. Maybe for some of the players it might be a little more difficult. The only other thing I would say is that when we play in preseason, we don’t play with fans. Guys are just going to have to find a way to be motivated. As the coach, I’m going to have to find ways to motivate them as well. And let’s be really honest: without fans, the game is going to be really different. The ambience is going to be really different. Again, the optimist in me says when all of this is over and we come out of the tournament, my excitement on that is that we’ll be in a different place at that point, as well. I’m hoping that we’re going to have fans in our stadium. Whatever number that is, I don’t know. But I feel the sooner we get back to being in front of our fans, obviously we’ll get back to living our better lives.
