Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
General thoughts on the match…
“Obviously we were all over [Portland] in the second half. We created some good chances in the first half, as well as the second half. We couldn’t find it, but the effort, the desire, the passion, everything was there in the game. Other than the mistake on the first goal, I thought we had it. Outside of that, the team played well. The subs came on and were energetic and had an impact for sure.”
On creating chances against Portland’s defense…
“[Portland] is always a good team defensively, for sure. They matched up pretty tough against our guys up front. Like I said, we created some really good chances. We did a good job. Again, the goal that they scored, outside of that, John [Pulskamp] had I’m not counting the last play of the game there that they had. The ball should have been called back. They had two guys standing three yards away from the ball when [Graham Zusi] hit the ball. They should have both got yellow cards, but neither here nor there. Outside of that, there wasn’t a ton of chances on their part. We were all over their goal, all over them. Just unfortunate we couldn’t put one in.”
On the substitutions made in the second half…
“Yes, and also there’s other guys that can come in and bring an impact on the game. So, we moved the team around the way we did. As I said to you, I thought all the guys played well and I think the guys that came on had a real impact, especially going forward. My only criticism might have been, there’s a few times we probably could have served the ball into the box a little bit more. [Kansas City players] were trying. They were trying. They were doing everything they could to try to do it and get back in the game. Great desire by the group.”
Sporting Kansas City forward Dániel Sallói
On the team’s performance…
“I thought we had some really good moments. Obviously, we made some mistakes that led to the goal as well. I think we need to correct those, but overall, I think we reacted very well, and we pushed really, really well in the second half and we had our chances. We need to score them and then we’ll be fine. I thought we could get away with a point, but it is what it is. It’s a tough environment. It’s tough to start your season like this, but I thought we did well, and we showed lots of positivity.”
On not being able to connect the final pass…
“We missed a couple players and I think once we have a full squad, we can be more and more creative. I thought we had our chances, and we could have easily put one away. It’s soccer. If you’re not going to score, then you can’t hope for the other team to make mistakes and miss their chances too. It’s something that we’ll need to work on to finish our chances, but other than that, overall, as a team we did well. Some guys came into the game who are new, so I’m very hopeful for the season and I’m excited to bounce back next week.”
