The first month of the season has not been easy for Sporting Kansas City. Peter Vermes’ squad played five games in 15 days including a trip to the Pacific Northwest to face the Seattle Sounders and a home-and-away series with Mexican powerhouse Cruz Azul in the CONACAF Champions League quarterfinals. But while some managers might look at the rough stretch as a negative, Vermes believes it will only help his club in the long run.
Of the 24 players on Sporting KC’s active roster – three players are currently on loan to USL PRO affiliates and Haitian midfielder Peterson Joseph is on the Disabled List – 19 have featured in competitive matches over the past three weeks.
“It’s important for guys to get experience,” Vermes told media in his weekly press conference on Thursday. “If a guy doesn’t play 25 games and all of a sudden he plays in the 26th game, you can’t expect miracles from him. But if you are giving him little opportunities across the season … you know you are going to get a serviceable job from him. I think that’s what we get out of having to do what we did in the first five games over the course of a long season.”
A congested schedule is not the only factor that Vermes has had to deal with in the early portion of the season. Right back Chance Myers and forward Soony Saad have missed the first month of the year with groin strains, while All-Star center back Aurelien Collin and starting left back Seth Sinovic missed matches against Cruz Azul due to yellow card accumulation.
“If you would ask any coach if he could have the full complement of players and then play the same lineup week after week because they were playing well, he would say ‘I want to do it,’” Vermes said. “The problem is, it’s not reality. You have injuries, you have call-ups, you have all these different things that are coming down the pipeline."
Vermes compares his lineup management this year to 2013, a year that ended with Sporting KC hoisting the MLS Cup. With three competitions to play, Vermes used 11 different combinations across his backline and 27 different players featured in competitive matches.
“It’s one of the reasons we were successful last year,” he said. “Early on, we had to use a lot of different guys and lot of guys got a lot experience which built depth for our team."
“I think we have very good depth for our league," Vermes added. "When you go to international play, it changes, but in our league, in Open Cup competition and all that, I think we have very good depth in our group.”