Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
Thoughts on the game…
I thought we had the better of the chances in the game. They finished on a set piece. Their best chance of the game was the one that Tim (Melia) made off his face at the end of the game, when we were pushing everything forward. Outside of that, they really didn't have much. They scored on a corner. Like I said, we had the better chances of the game. And obviously the no call on the stop the player makes (Erik) Sviatchenko inside the box on Daniel (Salloi’s) ball, I mean, it's a handball. I I don't know how hard that was, but obviously it was.
On the season coming to a close…
Anytime you go out of the playoffs without winning it, you're frustrated obviously. Credit to Houston. They played a solid game. But like I said, I think when you look at the chances and the opportunities that we had, we just didn't finish unfortunately. It's not a hard decision to make when you have replay. When a player kind of picks his arms up to make himself a little bit bigger, even if his hands are out to the side, it doesn't matter. He saves the ball with his hand. Normally speaking, a player will put his hands behind his back. His hands are to the side and up a little bit on the left. I've seen the replay already. There's no doubt in my mind. It's a handball. Actually, it's a handball and then a red card because it's stopping a goal-scoring situation. But unfortunately, they didn't call it. I commend our guys. They've put everything in all season long. We made the push at the end as well. We had a couple of chances even at the end of the game right in front of them. But they had some good blocks and we just couldn't find the back of the net.
On if an explanation was provided for why the play did not go to VAR…
Well, they're going to say that they did look at it and they'll say that the VAR person said that they didn't need to check it. Which, again, how? I have no idea.
On the team’s tactical approach…
We weren't going to go chase them all over the field. They like to play a box in the middle of the park. So we stayed with the same. Like I said, they didn't score any goals through the run of play. Â It was through a corner. So it was pretty simple. It was that we were going to take our chances like we had. We had some great counterattacks early on in the game and then obviously we had the chance with (Alan) Pulido. And then what I said before is when Alan got the ball, cut it back, played a shot, and then Daniel followed it up. I mean, it's right there. So like I said, I think actually the game plan netted out the things that we wanted to get in the game. Unfortunately, we just didn't finish the chances that we made.
On upcoming roster decisions…
I'm not going to talk about roster decisions at this point. Like I said before, I commend them immensely for the commitment that they made over the course of the year. I appreciate that very much from them from me personally. They stayed connected, they stayed bought in, and they made it a lot of fun when nobody believed that we were any good.
On the positives from the season…
I think that the group gave everything that they had. They really did. And in the times when they lacked a lot of confidence just because they weren't getting the results and everybody was saying how bad they were, when they really weren't that bad, we had a struggle and we were going to get through it. What I say again is that when you're in those situations, you have a decision to make. You either find a way and you fight your way out of it or you just give up. And the great thing is, the guys never gave up. They truly, truly fought for everything. They accomplished an incredible turnaround, but they're competitors and they want more and I'm sure that they're going to feel like they missed out on an opportunity here tonight.
On Roger Espinoza…
I actually put him in late because he's played left back. We've had obviously a situation where Logan Ndenbe went out with an ACL. Tim (Leibold) was really not fit. He hasn't played a game in I can't tell you how many months. And so Roger was the next guy up to go in at left back for us. And so at the end of the game, it made a lot of sense to put him in and just put some fresh legs in there to see if we could get some balls into the box, which he did. He actually did great and he pushed the game a little bit so that was the reason for the sub.
On having three weeks off…
I'll say it again, I think it was a situation that we were dealt. No problem. We had to deal with it. I actually think we dealt with it well. Like I said, if you look at the game and you just evaluate the game, the other team may have had the ball, but the chances were ours. We just didn't finish. Unfortunately, that's the way it goes sometimes. It's sad that it's in this game because we were on a real tear there a while back, three weeks ago. But again, it is what it is. I can't change that. We had to figure out a way how to navigate it. So did everybody else. I actually think our guys did okay in the game. Like I said, we didn't really give anything away and we played well.
Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia
On the team not finishing its chances…
I think we just didn't have rhythm for whatever it was. No good reason. I thought in the first half, we were a little erratic and then we really figured it out in the second half. We started to take over control of the game. We started to push them back. We started to eliminate the things that they're good at. And for whatever reason, we just couldn't capitalize on things tonight.
On Houston’s style of play…
I think it was just their willingness to push forward in a non-structured way. When you're playing out of the back, you always want to know where guys are coming from and who's going to be coming at you. But they do have a very free-flowing style. They have a lot of freedom within their positions to move around and it just took us longer to adjust to it than it normally would. They get the goal on the set piece early. I think from there on in, we had a lot of the ball and we had a lot of the momentum with the game. For whatever reason, tonight just wasn't our night to figure it out and find the solutions that we have been the past few weeks.
On the handball…
In the game it looked like a handball, but I have not seen a replay of it and I'm too far away to definitively say yes or no.
Reflecting on the season…
I mean, in this particular moment, it doesn't feel like that because I think we're a quality team and I know we're on the road playing against a good team, but I think we could have came out of this game and continued to advance. But it does not take away what we accomplished throughout the season. We showed a tremendous amount of grit. We showed a tremendous amount of belief in one another from our staff to players to ownership. We were incredibly supported collectively through the whole club. I don't want this result to take anything away from what we accomplished this year. We were able to overcome such a massive hole and that takes a lot of work and a lot of effort. We should, when we're able to kind of decompress and look back on that, that's something we should be very proud of.
On the play of Andreu Fontas…
He's been massive and I would say in our last stretch of games from post Leagues Cup on, I think he's really come into his own identity. He has such quality on the ball, but the amount of blocked shots and aggressive steps that he's made over the last few months has been really impressive. Even tonight, I can think of two in the second half where he made massive blocks, stepping into plays, reading it correctly. I think he's really grown into that position and I think you're starting to see how quality of a player he is on both defending and also in possession. I don't think there's anybody like him.
Sporting Kansas City captain Johnny Russell
On what went wrong…
I don't know. We didn’t look like ourselves tonight. I think in the first half, we didn't really play. We looked, I don't know, nervous. We maybe gave them too much respect. We tried something different to stop their key players and we didn't really stick to our gameplan the way that we would have liked. It’s a tough one to take. I don't feel like we gave the best account of ourselves after everything that we've done and shown to get back to this position. I think we came up very short tonight.
On the handball…
It's a handball for me. I'm not going to sit and say that's why we lost the game. It's not. But in games as tight as this and in occasions like this, I don't understand why referees aren't 100% sure. He's saying it hits his chest. It clearly doesn't. So I don't know why you're leaving it to VAR. Same as last night. I don't know. It's not the first time that we've had a decision like that go against us. But I'm not going to sit here and be a sore loser and say that's why we lost the game. It's not. But like I said, it's right after they score. That gets us back in the game. For me, penalty. But we'll probably get some form of apology as usual during the week.
Reflecting on the season…
Obviously it's hard to sit here and think about that now. But I said leading into the game that I was proud to be a part of this team and to witness obviously the sort of fight back after the early struggles. The way we've got ourselves back into this position, I said it before, I don't think many teams in this League can do what we've done. There’s pride in getting to this point but then it's difficult when we always knew it was going to be a difficult game coming here. But didn't give the greatest version of ourself. If we do that and we go out, then you can live with it. But I think we fell short tonight. They're a good side. They made it very difficult for us, but we weren't at our best and it's always going to be hard to win games like this when you're not at your peak.
On the three weeks off…
I'm not going to make excuses for the long layoff. I've already said that I think it's not the best format when you have that sort of break in the middle of your playoffs. It doesn't make sense to me. But again, it's not the reason why we lost tonight. I wouldn't say the nerves was down to the gameplan. We all knew what the gameplan was coming in. We just didn’t play the game that has got us to this point, especially after Leagues Cup and the way we've been playing. We just fell short of that tonight for whatever reason that was. I know it's easy for people to sit back and say it's for the lack of trying. It's not for the lack of trying. The guys gave everything to get to this position and we gave everything that we had tonight. It just wasn't good enough on the night.
On his message to the fans…
They've always stuck by us. When you're a fan of a team, a supporter of a team, it's not always good days. Sometimes there are bad days, but that doesn't mean you turn away or you give up which I don't think is in our fans. I haven't seen that. I know they're going to be back behind us next year. We just have to show what we've shown up until this point. Especially after those first 10 games -- the fight back, some of the play we've shown, some of the games that we've put on, especially at home. We have to do that more next year and it has to be from the very start. We can't be playing catch up. That's two seasons in a row now that we've left ourselves too much to do. So next year something has to change and I'm sure it will. The boys are hurting in there. You have just got to take that feeling and take it into preseason and then focus on next year. It's another year. We fell short again, so we've got to pick ourselves back up. We rally. You've got nothing else to do. You have to go again. I'm sure we'll bounce back from it. They've been incredible with us throughout and I'm sure they'll continue to be that.
