Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On the first half goals for St. Louis…
The one I watched was the penalty. It's not a penalty kick. It's not. So there's nothing else to say. It's not a penalty kick. That starts the ball rolling for them, but it's not a penalty kick. You can look at the one on Remi (Walter) on top of the box for them. It should have even been a card on top of it the way the guy goes through him and how he gets hit. That is what it is. They played well. They deserve the three points. They had a good game, so hats off to them.
On if there’s any communication with the officials postmatch…
No, not really. You don't get anywhere. It's over. It's done with. You can't do anything about it, unfortunately.
Thoughts on the match..
I think that up until the penalty, I thought the game was kind of like a little bit of back and forth, feeling each other out. I think they had good energy for sure, but of course they're at home. We're coming off a midweek game. We kind of expected it. We tried to make a few changes in the game to give some freshness to the group and we're still trying to get a couple of guys fit because they can't play 90. I think, obviously, the first goal gets them on a run and I think kind of after that, it's one of those things where the game opens up a little bit because we're trying to go after the game. At the end, they played well and they deserve three points.
On the play of Tim Leibold…
I would say it was good. It wasn't anything special. I would just say it's good. It was good to get him out on the field. Like I said, he got 45 minutes. There was a possibility he only could do 30, but we got him 45. So it was good that he was able to get through that. But obviously he needs games because he hasn't played, as you said, since the LA game and he only played spots in the first two games before that against Portland and Colorado. He needs more games. Logan (Ndenbe) has done very well in that position. As I said, he expended a lot of energy in the LAFC game. That was a tough one.
Sporting Kansas City midfielder Roger Espinoza
Thoughts on the match…
It was a tough game for us. At the beginning, you can see right away that they were on the front foot. We were not able to keep the ball in the right spaces. They won it in the right spaces. They were able to counterattack right there on the first goal and the penalty. And they got momentum from there. It was very difficult for us to manage the game and credit to them for doing that.
Thoughts on the officiating…
It's very tough. We're away from home, so it's a very difficult game for us being away from home. We didn't get some calls that we should have gotten. I didn't see the PK very well, but honestly I don't think it's a penalty. It was a difficult game and a lot of running.
On the performance of the team this year…
Hey, we just started doing better. This is just a bump in the road for us. I was just going to mention that earlier. My perspective to a lot of the guys is we're not a big squad. A lot of guys have been with a lot of injuries and it was very difficult for us coming from LA to come play here. We had a midweek game. They didn't. It was just a tough game for us there.
