Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On Tim Melia’s penalty save…
I think it’s a PK. One hundred percent. Tim tries to come out and make a play on it and causes the penalty but then he pulls the team out. At that point, at that moment all of sudden you say, okay a little wake up call. Let’s go. Then they get the player thrown out. We lacked urgency in the game. Credit to Columbus. Sometimes when you’re down a man, you get galvanized and you defend really well in a block. We’ve done it before here at home, against Dallas last year in the Open Cup. Sometimes it happens. You can do it. But at the same time, the lack of urgency on our part was a disappointment from my perspective.
On whether the team dropped points…
Even if they would have scored that goal, my opinion is you’ve got to find a way to get back into the game. You still have a lot of time to win so, for sure, points dropped – no doubt about it.
On the incident involving Seth Sinovic…
I only saw a little bit during the live version of the game. I want to see the replay.
On whether he had gotten an explanation on the incident…
None. No, not at all. I’m assuming everyone is asking me because it must have been pretty poor.
On not capitalizing on the man advantage…
The one thing for me is that we have an obligation I think every time we step inside the white lines to play a certain way. But at times, what’s going to happen is that you’re going to be off. Maybe you miss a pass, maybe you miss a shot, maybe you mis-settle a ball. Sometimes you don’t have your A game that day. One thing that you always need to bring is your effort. We have an obligation to leave everything we have physically on the field and I don’t think that we did that today. It’s not something that I take very lightly here. I can’t tell you exactly what the reason is for it but I can tell you that the players will feel it over the next week. Because again, it’s disappointing to me. If we had the urgency and we were pushing the game and we were flying, heat’s no excuse to me. Every team has got to play in that environment. I have more than enough veterans guys on my team that have been through it before. I’ll tell you this, if it’s the heat – we’ll find out what heat really is.
On the tactics of playing up a man…
There are times when you play against 10 guys or 11 if you count the keeper, and teams do that as well. But you have to figure out a way. We work on this stuff quite often in training. We spend a lot of time on it. It doesn’t matter how good the game plan is. It doesn’t matter how much you’ve worked on it. What always matter is how you go out and execute. In this game today, it doesn’t matter if we had an incredible solution for the fact that they were bunkered back. They had to do what they had to do to get a point. I respect that and I understand. But at the same time we had an obligation as well and an objective and that was to go score. If you want to, you’re going to do everything. You’re going to die running into the box when the ball is out wide. You’re not going to have one. You’re going to have five guys in there. When a ball pops out, you’re going to be first to it. You have an extra man. We didn’t do that. You can do that against 11v11. Is it hard? Sure it is. Barcelona has a hard time with it. A lot of teams in the world have a hard time with that. Again, you have to show urgency.
Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia
On his penalty…
It’s an important part of the game. I don’t want to give away the penalty. I’m not sure how I can handle it differently. It’s a difficult situation because I have to step as hard as I can to make sure I cut down Zardes’ angle. If any striker just continues their momentum, they’re going to run into the goalie. It’s frustrating from the goalkeeping perspective because you don’t know what else to do. The ball is completely away from him and they still give him a penalty. At the end of the day it didn’t hurt us, but I never want to put the team in that situation.
On earning another clean sheet…
It’s this team. It’s not me at all. It’s the unity that this back four, back five, back six has. It’s that we defend from the front to the back to get the result. We had a little bit of the upper hand tonight.
On the hydration breaks…
Today we needed it. It’s hot out here. It’s humid. The air is thick. You could see from the pace of the game, it drains the players running around. When you’re in the sun, it was even worse. All in all, we’re not happy with the result. We want to win at home but we got a shutout. We’ve got to move on, look at this game and learn from it.
Sporting Kansas City defender Ike Opara
Thoughts on the match…
I think for this game, Columbus is going to take a lot of positives out of it and we’re going to have a few more negatives than them so we’ve got to get better. We’ve got Minnesota next weekend. We’ve got to get three points. Columbus was really organized and really good. They’re a good team and that’s what good teams do. They grind out points when they’re down a man.
On the heat…
It’s not fun. Thankfully they have the hydration breaks for the safety of the players. It helps. The weather’s unfortunate. It’s not conditions that anyone wants to play in. We just have to make do with it.
On the team’s defensive form…
The first month of the year, we struggled a little bit with consistency from game to game. We’ve really focused on the defensive aspect. Getting another shutout is a positive that we can take from today but moving forward we’re going to have to stay very focused. The summer months are here and it’s never easy. It’s up to us.
Columbus Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter
On the return of Gaston Sauro…
First of all, I’m really proud of Gaston Sauro to come back and to work this hard to reab and get back into a position to help the team. Today, first and foremost is my congratulations to him. He’s back on the field and able to help the team get a result is something that he’s been fighting for a long time. So congratulations to him.
On the result…
Escape with a point maybe because of the red card, right? But don’t forget we missed a penalty. We maybe could have had another one. We had a couple wide open chances. So to me, it was a shame. I think the game had a winner in it if we stayed 11v11. But it certainly got hard being down a man. At halftime, we re-grouped and we talked about a plan and how we were going to do it. The team didn’t stop fighting. Give them credit for executing.
On the play of Zack Steffen…
Zack’s a warrior. He got a little banged up with his finger but it’s not too severe. Like most guys, you play through a little pain in the course of a season.
On setting the club’s shutout streak record…
We’re proud. It’s not something we talk about. It’s not something we’re aiming for. But we’re certainly proud of it. It’s a culmination of work by a lot of guys. It’s the whole team. On nights like tonight and days like Seattle, where the guys work together to achieve their goals.
Columbus Crew SC goalkeeper Zack Steffen
On playing with an injured finger…
There’s adrenaline. Once you step out on the field, it’s fine. I just tape it, it’s fine. No problems.
On the impact of his injury moving forward…
I’ll be fine with it. It’ll be healed in a couple of weeks. I’ll just tape it throughout the season and it will be fine.
On the team’s result…
It’s huge. Down a man, in this heat, against this team, in this atmosphere, it feels like a win honestly. The effort that the guys put out in front of me was unparalleled. I’m really proud of the guys.
On setting the team’s shutout streak record…
Those accolades are nice. It’s just not a kudos to me, it’s a kudos to the backline and the guys in front of me and the hard work that they’re putting in, as well. We just keep going. It’s a long season and those are just little accolades. It’s not the trophy that we want to lift at the end of the year.
On the team’s resolve…
Our mentality right now is really strong. We just did this. We just played with 10 men away in another difficult crowd and atmosphere a couple weeks ago. When we got into the locker room, we said we’ve been through this before. Let’s get to 0-0 at the water break then we’ll re-group and get to 0-0 at the end of the game. That just goes to show our mentality and the love that we have for each other that we put the work out for 90 minutes down a man.
Columbus Crew SC defender Gaston Sauro
On the team’s form…
I think we are a great group. We are working very well in defense. We are a team that we are dangerous, too, when we create. We are happy that we are solid at the moment. We are doing very well and I hope we can continue like that.
On playing down a man in the second half…
It was tough. The weather here was very hot for both teams. To have one man less is too much on a day like today. I think we fought together and got a very good result for us.
On securing a road result in KC…
I think every game here in MLS is hard but in this stadium with this team – they are one of the best teams now in the West – we came here and we showed that we are good, too. I’m proud of my teammates because we did a very nice job today.
On returning from injury…
I was excited before the game and when my time arrived to go in. I was working hard for this moment. One year and eight months after my last game, I come back and I’m so happy.
