MLS: New York City FC 0-1 Sporting KC – Coaches reactions
Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes
Peter Vermes on his defense today:
I thought that the first half overall as a team we were pretty good. I think what happened in the second half everything changed because we were up a goal. They came out…it’s their place. They’ve got to try and get back into the game and they threw a lot of numbers forward. Where we could have broke them was there were a couple of really good chances for us to catch them on the counter in transition, but we didn’t. But I thought for the majority of time we defended very well. We gave up a couple of opportunities, but at the same time so did they. I guess at the end it was a fair result for sure.
On the discussion of a penalty at the end of the game:
It was from the perspective of what happened a couple of weeks ago when we played Dallas and the guy scores a goal and five guys were offside when he scored. So if this was going to be a mistake that would not have only been a good decision, but it would have been a bad week for a lot of people.
On Ike Opara’s perfomance with the departure of Aurelien Collin:
He’s tremendous. The guy is a monster. There’s never been a question of whether or not he can be that guy and take over that position. I would tell you that I think that he’s the best player in the league in the air. He’s tremendous. He’s got incredible timing in the air. He’s excellent on attacking set pieces. This is his second goal already in four games. He should have scored last week on a goal as well and he should have scored against Dallas as well. He’s been really, really dangerous. I think he’s played very well in that position. He’s been a monster for us.
New York City FC head coach Jason Kreis
On when he knew David Villa would not be playing
Yesterday. We took him out to the training session yesterday to do some work on his own and hopefully build into his own ability to get involved with the rest of the team. We were trying to do that and the very last activity we were doing yesterday and he quickly said it wasn’t going to work.
On if Villa’s injury was something ongoing that they were trying to manage
We’ve been managing it since before the Orlando City match and every single game we’ve gotten to the point where we were very questionable about whether he was going to be available for that match. He’s managed through the pain and the swelling, and we’ve been doing treatments with him pretty much nonstop to get him the best opportunity to play. Every time, every week he’s said “feels good, I’m ready to go,” and yesterday was the first time where the pain was just to unbearable this time. So we believe strongly that with a week off that he will do nothing but strengthen and physiotherapy. He won’t get involved with the team at all in the training sessions . But, we believe we can get him in the right place to build up to get involved and be ready for the Philadelphia match.
