Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On Sporting’s response after falling behind 2-0 in the first half…
The game shouldn’t have been 2-0 to begin with, it should have only been 1-0. If you look where Dany (Rosero) is and where their player is, there is no way VAR should miss that. It’s completely unacceptable. That is a missed play. It’s so easy to see. So it should be 1-0 at that point. I thought the guys actually played well. I thought we made our adjustments at halftime and we had our chances. I also think we had a penalty kick missed as well on Willy Agada when he was going in on the ball and the player took him off his feet. It doesn’t matter, you could turn around and swipe your leg out and may not see the guy, but if you trip him, it’s still a foul. It’s 100% a foul and it’s a penalty 100%. Those two plays are missed and (Minnesota) has an outcome from the game. But you know what, our guys played well. It was a good reaction from the group being down (two) goals. We kept our heads in it and we didn’t lose ourselves.
On Sporting’s chance creation in the 2-1 loss…
When you go down 2-0, you can lose yourself in the game. We didn’t do that. We were actually smart and kept our cool and concentration. I think the guys also exposed how we got in behind them in different situations a few times. We created a few chances, maybe not as clear as you would like. We had the Willy (Agada) one and we had a few here and there. We came up short on that aspect of it, but the game should be 1-1.
On the performance of right back Kayden Pierre and his substitute Khiry Shelton…
Kayden was good. It’s different than playing an MLS NEXT Pro game with the speed and everything else. He hasn’t had a game like the one he had today. I thought he did well, but with his fitness he started to get tired. I think he was getting to a point where he was cramping up, so the next step was to bring Khiry in, and I thought he actually did well. We were trying to push forward and he was getting into the box and getting forward, which was really good. He actually does a really good job defending his guys out there. So credit to both guys.
On where Sporting stands after 10 matches of the season…
I think that we’ve given up points where we were in very good positions to get points. Sometimes it’s a bounce here or there, but I really like our ability to attack. For the most part, I like the way that we defend a lot of situations, so we’re getting better there. I think we still have to work on closing games out. And I would say that some calls have been really poor over the 10 games that have gone against us. You can take the first game at home and start there and then go down the list. Sometimes that will take points away from you as well, but I think we’ve got a good group and they’ve shown that they can attack. For the most part, they’ve shown that they can defend really well as a group. We have defended really well on the road as well, which is sometimes really difficult because the other team drives the game. I thought today we turned the tide in the second half and we put more pressure on them. I think the group is good and we will continue to get better in the other areas. I actually think it’s a really good group and a dangerous group.
Sporting Kansas City forward Alan Pulido
On scoring a goal for the second straight game…
This goal for me is nothing because we lost and we came here for a win. I know it’s my third goal of the season, but I don’t care. I prefer to win and that is more important for me. We need to be better in these matches because we have missed points in these last four games.
On Sporting’s response after falling behind early…
After their two goals, we played better with the ball. We needed to push forward and that’s normal when you are losing 2-0. But why did we wait such a long time? When the game starts, we need to be ready to push and go forward because when we have the ball, we play very well and have a lot of opportunities. I don’t know why the game was like this. We need to work and push forward. This is the objective for the team and we need to be ready for the next match because we don’t want to lose any more games.
