MLS: Sporting KC 0-0 Real Salt Lake
Sporting KC Manager Peter Vermes
Overall thoughts on the match…
I never go into a game thinking that it will wind up 0-0, I go thinking that we will score. We dominated the game and we definitely deserved more than we got. The positive is we played really, really well I thought. We dominated the game.
On the frustration of being held to a 0-0 draw…
There is frustration with not getting the goal for sure, but it is not frustration for not playing well. I think we dominated the game. I think we didn´t give anything up to them at all. I thought we defended very well as a team. I thought we anticipated a lot of stuff and I thought we were really good. We were in and around them quite a bit. We were very good in the channels. I thought we were creating stuff up the middle. Those are the type of games we can build off of, and at the same, time they are the type of games that give your team confidence. It was not just a game that was just counters. It was purposeful and it was possession. There were some times that we went really quickly. I thought Dom was really good up front and I thought Nemeth was very dangerous the way he came inside and connected to the game quite a few times. I think if we had found him more one or more two times in the first half I think he may well have walked in free on goal.
On preventing counter-attack goals…
I think our guys understand that we need be smarter and know these situations. Thus far in this season we have been very good with that. Last week everybody complained about how we played but we came out and scored two goals in injury time. We play tonight and it is 0-0. Normally we make one mistake and they capitalize on that mistake. We are a much more mature team than we were in the past from that point of view. It is very encouraging the way we played tonight.
On Sporting KC’s performance in the match…
I thought from start to finish our guys were fantastic: our movement off the ball, our aggressiveness to get into attacking positions and we won a lot of second balls tonight. We were excellent there. In duels I think we were 60-45, which is huge. I look at Real Salt Lake as a good team, but also a very competitive team. Their guys compete for everything on the field. For us to have domination in certain areas is very good for us.
