Sporting Kansas City 0-3 DC United
Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes
On whether Tuesday’s CONCACAF Champions League match affected this game…
Absolutely not. D.C. was good on threes counters, which our back four was absolutely horrendous on. It’s one of those days where they came down on three routine plays and they scored three goals because of the way we were organized at the back. There has been a lot of credit given to our back four over a long period of time, but the way that they performed tonight, they’re going to get the credit for giving up three goals. But this has nothing to do with playing against Real Estelí.
On Besler and Collin potentially being rested in the near future…
It wouldn’t be games off because of tiredness; it’d be games off because of performance. If the guys aren’t playing well, they aren’t going to play. It has everything to do with tactical decisions.
On whether or not Sporting KC’s loss is significant…
No, I don’t individualize games over the course of the season. Every game is important always.
On Sporting KC’s home performances this season…
It’s been a strange year. It’s not like we’ve gone out with our consistent style, and there have been a lot of disruptions. So it’s a difficult thing to evaluate. I couldn’t care less about the games up until today. This is the one I have to evaluate now.
D.C. United Manager Ben Olsen
On D.C. United’s win over Sporting KC…
It’s not secret they are extremely aggressive at home. A lot of these games come down to if you can counter in the right way. Today, I think we were pretty sharp in that area and fortunately we punished them for it.
On managing the game…
They bring it 20 minutes at the start of the game better than most teams. We weathered it and then I thought the way we dealt with the game, even after we scored our first goal, was very mature. And then in the second half, they had a couple really good flurries and we held them off.
On his team’s emotions after the match…
It’s still a long season. It’s nice for these guys to be on top for all the hard work they have put in. They get it. There is more to this than right now and we have got to quickly refocus and go to LA [Galaxy], which is equally as tough a challenge as this. We are really excited to go out there and on to New York over the weekend.
