The final Sporting KC Show of 2014 aired last night on Sports Radio 810 WHB with hosts Callum Williams and Carter Augustine wrapping up a season that stretched 43 games from March thru October. The 45-minute podcast is embedded below and features interviews with Sporting Kansas City defender Seth Sinovic and assistant coach John Pascarella.
Pascarella, who joined the club's technical staff prior to the 2009 season, shared his thoughts on the busy offseason ahead and the experience Sporting KC gained from the adversity faced in 2014.
On how he will spend the coming weeks...
A lot of combines, a lot of watching videos, a lot of preparing for the different drafts that are coming up. Whether it's the dispersal draft with the players from Chivas USA coming out or the different re-entry drafts with the free agents and especially, one of my big areas of focus, is the college draft. We have two first round picks this year, so we're hoping to make those count and continue to get some good players through the MLS draft. And then it's evaluating what happened over this past year. Every year brings obstacles. Every year brings its adversity. We had some adversity over the last few years. But it's a little bit different than the type of adversity that we encountered this year.
On how 2014 differed from previous seasons...
The adversity we faced a couple of years ago was one in which we were climbing and we were almost there but we didn't quite reach the summit. So we got knocked down a peg. And then we had to do it again and we got knocked down a peg. Then we had to do it again, so we were a team that were fairly experienced at that type of adversity. But then we turn around and we won it last year and the adversity we faced this year -- we had injuries in the other years, we had fixture congestion the other years -- but the adversity that I think was difficult for us to handle was being able to deal with being champions and everybody giving you their best game. Are you going to be competitive enough in every single match? Are you going to be able to deal with that type of adversity as the champion? In that respect, we weren't experienced at it. We are now because we've gone through a year of having been champions and gotten knocked off of our throne. But I think it's something from which we'll all learn from. The coaches will learn from it. I think the players will learn from it. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. From that perspective, I think it's going to be a great offseason and I think it's going to be a great preseason. I look forward to watching the team play next year.
