Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On Real Salt Lake’s early red card and Erik Thommy’s free kick goal…
Thank God for VAR because I was surprised it wasn’t called during the regular play. It was so obvious. I got scared from that when it wasn’t called, and in fact, (RSL) went down the other way on us. For us it was so obvious, it was a “Why are we even playing?” type of thing. Thank God for VAR. It was big time for Thomy to score his free kick. It’s not like it’s a penalty kick, so him hitting that ball was a great finish.
On Real Salt Lake’s late rally…
What we should be talking about is we scored three goals on the road. (RSL) is a team that is very stingy in giving goals away. We got another three points to keep us alive at the moment. It’s well done by the guys. The rest of it is the game. It’s why people watch sports. Our guys battled to the end. They did what they had to do, they fought through it and we got all three points. Now we’re on to the next game at home.
On subbing defender Dany Rosero out at halftime…
Dany just had a little (knock) and I told him we had to take him off because I didn’t want to risk anything. He was also in a yellow card situation (for caution accumulation) as well, so it only made sense.
On Real Salt Lake’s late pressure…
Would you rather be asking me about playing really well tonight but losing 2-1? I look at it as three goals on the road and winning 3-2. Of course they’re going to pump the ball at the end and they did. We had to make a lot of changes with guys coming off the field. We got the three points and that’s what matters to me.
On Sporting’s disallowed goal from Marinos Tzionis in the late stages…
I think Willy (Agada) was offsides by at least a yard, personally.
On Sporting’s regular season finale against Minnesota United FC on Oct. 21…
What’s happened in the past never matters. It’s going to be a war between both teams, so we have to get prepared. I’m surprised by the change they made as a club. I think Adrian (Heath) is a very good coach in this league. I think that he has guided that club for seven years and done a great job. He built a very good team, and that is a very good team. It’s going to be an absolute battle of a game for us.
Sporting Kansas City midfielder Erik Thommy
On drawing an early foul on Justen Glad that reduced Real Salt Lake to 10 men…
Yeah, he grabbed my shirt. It was for sure a foul. At the end, we are happy that we have the VAR. Luckily we had a good start. I scored and I think the first half was pretty good.
On being subbed out in the second half…
I'm (feeling) good. I think it was (to avoid) a yellow card, so you have to be safe for the last game. And that's why I think the coach took me out. But I think the guys who went in, they did a great job. We took the three points home and next game is an important game for us at home. Hopefully we have a lot of fans at home that keep pushing us. We also need some results from the other games.
On the VAR decision…
If the VAR is for us, it's always good. Yeah, if they get a red card after two minutes, of course it plays in our favor. And after that I score directly. So yeah, we had a great half and finally we get the decision we want. Sometimes during past games we had decisions against us, for sure. So we are happy for that and I think that was also a big reason why we won the game today.
On if Sporting believes the team can reach the playoffs…
Yeah, we still believe it. I think when we go back, we know that the first 10 games were not that good and that brought us in that situation where we are. But I think we fall back and we are now in that situation where we have still a chance. But we need, of course, the results of the other games and to do our job at home. So there are a lot of things that are important next week. Hopefully we can get it done, and then there's hopefully a longer way to go.
