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Sporting KC HC Peter Vermes, Dániel Sallói call for roster changes after Houston loss

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Sporting KC HC Peter Vermes, Dániel Sallói call for roster changes after Houston loss

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Sporting Kansas City head coach Peter Vermes is fed up with his team’s efforts after a 2-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo on Saturday.

2-5-5 Sporting has gone winless in six straight MLS games since a 3-1 victory over Toronto FC on March 30 and sits five points out of a playoff spot at 11th in the MLS standings. the Western Conference.

Vermes described the two goals given up by Sporting as “atrocious”. Houston midfielder and captain Hector Herrera’s opening goal gave Dynamo the lead in the 31st minute with a high right-footed shot into the upper right corner from just outside the box on a corner kick for a 1-0 lead.

Herrera had plenty of space to set up his goal, the sixth set-piece goal Sporting have given up this season (which ranks in the top five in Major League Soccer), and Vermes highlighted the lack of effort of his team as the only reason for his frustration.

“I’m the head coach, so I have to take responsibility for it, but the organization is always organized on set pieces,” he said. “The second goal is lack of effort. And it’s really easy to see who these people are.

Houston’s second goal came in the 78th minute. Dynamo took advantage of Sporting’s high pressure in their 4-2-3-1 formation with Houston goalkeeper Steve Clark throwing a ball to wide open right back Griffin Dorsey on the right wing.

Dorsey crossed midfield as the Sporting players were late in transition and Dorsey sent an assist to wide-open striker Ibrahim Aliyu on the left wing who sent a right-footed shot past the goalkeeper from SKC Tim Melia to take the advantage.

Vermes did not name the players who lacked effort, but striker Dániel Sallói was the first SKC player on Dorsey as he accelerated through midfield and collided with Dorsey before stopping. Center back Robert Voloder also stopped right in front of Dorsey before passing the ball. Midfielder Memo Rodriguez was closing in on him as he sent the pass to Aliyu. Aliyu accelerated past striker, captain Johnny Russell and right back Jake Davis down the left wing to score.

“A lack of effort to get back there because their player ran past a few of ours,” Vermes said. “That’s not the Sporting Kansas City mentality. It’s not. I have a real problem with this aspect. I’m going to deal with this very quickly because this is simply unacceptable to me. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s the lack of effort on games.

“The other thing is we have a responsibility to our fans when they come to this place to leave your heart on the field and leave your blood, sweat and tears on the field. I think some guys do that and I think some guys don’t. If I have to make changes to the starting lineup, I will. It’s unfortunate.”

Sallói scored his first goal of the season in the 61st minute and echoed Vermes’ sentiments about excluding players who don’t try hard enough.

“If there are players who don’t have that mentality, get rid of them and move on,” he said. “We play professional sports. If you don’t have that mentality, then what do we do? If it’s me, get rid of me. If it’s the others, get rid of the others. Every year we have this problem, so let’s change it.

“We ended up in a bad shape, like a bad race. And it’s hard to get by, but the bare minimum is always the mentality, I think, and if you’re lacking that, then we’ve got a bigger problem.

Last season, SKC started the season winless through the first 10 games before clawing their way to an 8-seed position in the playoffs and upsetting international rival 1-seed St. Louis City SC, on the way to the Western Conference semi-finals. of the 2023 MLS Cup playoffs.

Only three players on this year’s list were not on last year’s list.

“This team was able to, from a mentality standpoint, do what they did last year, which I thought was pretty impressive once we got our guys back. It’s a mentality right away,” he said. “It’s not that they don’t have it, it’s that it doesn’t happen. And like I told you, I’m the first person to say I’ll take my responsibilities, but when I have to do it, but when I was talking about suffering, there will be suffering there, real suffering.

This season, Sporting has also lost four straight home leads to start the season and has never been ahead of Houston on Saturday. Vermes did not say whether the problem came to a head during the Houston game, but wants to stop the team’s slide ahead of time.

“I certainly don’t like the fact that we’ve had points here at home and leads where we’ve given up those leads. And it depends on the mentality. Now the situations were such that we were pulling the other way and now there is a lack of aggression even in some guys who are going in that direction as well. Is everything coming to a head tonight? No, I do not think so. I don’t let things get out of hand because right now I don’t like where they are.

Vermes repeated three times the “change of mentality” as the only way to solve the team’s problems.

” Change of mentality. That’s all,” he said. “Sport is all about desire and passion. That’s what it’s about. In sport, you suffer. You suffer from different Sometimes you suffer because of the amount of effort you had to put into a game. That’s all part of it. I don’t think every guy on that field suffered from that. this way tonight.

“The mentality and the heart, you have to have it. If you don’t have it, you might as well forget it. You can’t get into the stadium or onto the field and you’re missing the most important ingredient. It’s an effort. If you don’t have that and you’re not willing to outplay your opponent – ​​because I know football is 11 versus 11 – but at the end of the day, especially the players, they’re in 1 against 1. There are 10 guys. They are 1v1. They often play against the same guy in the match. Sometimes you play against another guy, of course. But you have a one-on-one duel with the guy you actually see in the game. We don’t dominate all of these environments. And you must do it. You have to do it physically, you have to do it mentally and then you have to do it technically and tactically too. You have to do this. And that’s not the case for a lot of guys.

Vermes highlighted what the team did well throughout the game, but lamented the team’s decision-making as to why they didn’t score more.

“In the first half we had some incredible opportunities where we gave them away in their own half, but our decision-making was very poor,” he said. “We shoot from 35 yards so we can dribble straight into the goal. We steal one and we shoot and Willy (Agada) is wide open. If you give it to him, he walks 1 on 1 with the goalkeeper. Decision making, this part must always improve. It’s something you’re still working on. But you also need to be able to enjoy the things you’ve created for yourself. This is why I come back to these situations.

“We won the ball. We turned them over in the first half. We should have easily scored two goals, maybe even three, based on some of the opportunities we took. Have they run out of luck? Sure, but they were both just terrible, terrible defending from us.

SKC will face Austin on the road at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

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