Sporting Kansas City opened the Desert Diamond Cup in Tucson, Arizona earlier today with a 1-1 draw against the Colorado Rapids. Amer Didic gave Sporting KC the lead with a looping header in the 51st minute before the Rapids equalized with a penalty kick in the 91st minute, awarded through the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) system. Manager Peter Vermes spoke with the media after the game.
On how the team played:
“Actually, I thought in the first half we were doing a really good job of playing through the lines, building up the field, and again, with purpose getting into the final third. We created some really good actions, we were unlucky a couple of times with a few balls that were nipped away, but it was a really good mentality from the first group. The second group, we didn’t keep the ball as well and it made us have to chase the game a little bit more. Unfortunate to give up that goal at the end, but all in all, it was a good performance all the way round.”
On Ike Opara’s status after going down in the first half:
“He goes down every game, believe me, he’s fine.”
On Dom Dwyer’s first minutes in preseason:
“It was good, we had to get 30 minutes into him, that’s what we wanted and he got good work in 30 minutes which is what we were shooting for. So now it’s about building him up for the next game, but it’s really trying to get him ready for the first game and trying to get his fitness up and that’s the biggest thing, but he looks good.”
On being able to hold Colorado to no shots on goal in the first half:
“It was good, it was really good. I thought one, they were very in tune and locked into the game, two is I thought they kept a really good line throughout the game, and the other is I thought our pressure on the ball and our decisions to go pressure the ball were excellent.”
On how Gerso Fernandes is fitting into the team:
“Really well, he was good today. Him and Latif (Blessing) were both very dangerous and really picked up a lot of the things that we worked on over the last five, six days right before we left, they’ve really picked up a lot of stuff and been able to implement it into their game.”
