Sporting KC opened their 2013 pre-season match schedule with a scoreless draw today against the New England Revolution in a scrimmage held at Grande Sports World.
LINKS
:
- Match reports:
SKC
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NE
- Photos:
USA Today
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NE Revs
- Video:
NE Recap
- Audio:
SoS
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Jimmy Nielsen
Out of the Blue caught up with Manager Peter Vermes after the match for his thoughts...
On playing at Grande Sports World…
There's a lot of MLS teams and we want to play games so it winds up being a good place to be. Today was a good, competitive game for us especially early on in the pre-season. We all have a lot of guys and this is really an evaluation period. So it winds up being a good game for us early in the pre-season.
On the amenities provided by FC Tucson…
I've said this all along. They not only have been incredible hosts, but the thing that they continue to do is improve what they offer in terms of the facilities. And their attention to detail is fantastic. So it really has wound up becoming a really good place for us to do our pre-season every year. We want to continue to make it a consistent part of our pre-season.
On what attracts MLS teams to Arizona…
A lot of times when you go away, the difficulty is to find somebody to host you, that works with you to get the things that you want. You want to be comfortable in the pre-season. You want to make sure you have the right equipment, the fields are where they need to be, you set up the games, everything is there. These guys do a great job. They hardly ever say no. It's not like we're being picky, but you want certain things for your team and they're very good at accommodating it.
Thoughts on the match…
It's the first game. It's always good to come out and play against another opponent. What I thought was good in the first game is that we had pretty good possession. The other piece for that group, as well, is that they were calm. They played the game, they knocked the ball around. From that perspective, it was very good.
On the opportunity to see new faces in the lineup…
I think it was good for the other group to get a run in. But we haven't had a chance to work with those guys that much. I mean, how many of those guys just came in the other day? We'll get a chance to work with them and I think they'll be better as time goes on. We'll see how it all goes.
On who stood out…
I think Christian Duke did well. I thought that when Mikey Lopez was with the first group, I thought that he held his own okay. He had some good movements on the field so hopefully that keeps growing.
