Six months ago, Sporting Kansas City manager Peter Vermes glossed over the 2014 season in dismay. On the heels of a championship, the club bowed out of the playoffs early after injuries and call-ups decimated a competitive roster eyeing a repeat.
Fast-forward to the present, and Vermes is in an eerily similar predicament. Sporting KC has been hit with a string of injuries in the first three months of the season — Ike Opara was diagnosed with a ruptured Achilles tendon in April; Chance Myers is still battling back from his own Achilles injury that forced him to miss much of last season; Graham Zusi has missed time to a hamstring and concussion; Marcel de Jong has been sidelined with a hip injury; Seth Sinovic took a knock to the head recently leading to concussion-like symptoms.
That’s only a handful of the injuries, too.
The club is also without 18-year-old defender Erik Palmer-Brown, who joined the U.S. Men’s National Team in New Zealand for the U-20 World Cup, and will lose forward Krisztian Nemeth to the Hungary National Men’s National Team next week.
With this summer’s Gold Cup on the horizon, Vermes is expecting to lose even more players from a roster that was only able to suit up 17 and 16 players in their last two matches. Fortunately for Sporting KC, a major lesson was learned from last season’s adversity.
“What I’ve learned in this job for quite a long time is that you can waste a lot of energy thinking about what could and should and all those things,” Vermes said. “You really have to just focus on what you can deal with.
“The guys that will be available, we’ll try to get them as prepared as we can for each game that we have going forward. We’ll do our best with that. The great thing is that I have confidence in our guys, I really do. I don’t go into the game going, ‘Oh my god, how are we going to do this?’ I don’t see it that way; I’m really confident in what we can do with our players, because I think they’re pretty focused and bought in with what we’re trying to do.”
That confidence has rubbed off on Vermes’ side, which hasn’t been defeated since April 18 and has earned eight points in four May matches thus far.
The group has done so on the back of several surprise performances. Tim Melia, the former MLS pool goalkeeper, stepped into the No. 1 role and has started four-straight matches. The club’s three 2015 first-round draft picks have logged a combined 500 minutes through 12 matches. Meanwhile, Soni Mustivar has solidified the team’s hole at defensive midfield, earning his first start on May 3 in a 1-0 win against the Chicago Fire.
Sporting KC now enter Friday’s clash against FC Dallas three points shy of a tie for second place in the contested Western Conference.
“It speaks volumes of Peter, to have such a structured system where he can plug guys in and out,” Melia said. “I also think it also speaks very highly of the players that he drafted and the guys that he brings in here.
“We’ve used a majority of our roster so early in the season and the guys have shown a lot of resilience to be able to go in there and say, ‘This is my opportunity, I’m going to perform.’ I’m proud of all the players.”
Sporting KC will look to extend their unbeaten streak to six matches Friday at 8 p.m. against FC Dallas at Sporting Park.
