MLS – Sporting Kansas 1-3 Houston Dynamo
Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes
On poorly defended set pieces against Houston…
Eventually we’ll get it right. Two set pieces, especially the second and third one, were two situations that were routine plays again. On the second one Olum misses his mark, just stands there, and he gets in free. On the third one we didn’t have the number of people we should have and it was just too easy. It was three soft goals from our perspective.
On if the physical first half play had an emotional effect on the players…
No. If anything, it got people fired up.
On how Sporting KC played after the rain delay…
I thought that they had one too many set pieces in that first 16 minutes. We came back in. We talked a little bit and we were actually pretty good and for quite a bit of the game we were. It’s not major things that are happening in the game. They’re soft goals. They were three soft goals and it’s the same as it was last week. I’ve been in situation where this has happened away before. You cannot hide away from it. We’ll review video. These guys will see it and know it and they’ll have to own up to it. They’ll just have to work harder. Everybody sees everything nowadays so it’s very difficult to hide away.
On Sporting KC’s defensive performance as a whole…
We were much better throughout the run of play from a defending perspective and if we were numbers down we could play the game really well on the counter and we didn’t give up a lot of stuff there. But we gave up to many set pieces and at the same time we defended the set pieces poorly. It’s not something that we don’t work on. Defending is all attitude and mentality. You don’t have to be a good soccer play to defend well. It takes a mentality. And right now we’re not strong enough. We need to get back to who we are. I can’t promise you it’s going to be Wednesday. But we’re going to get there for sure because we’ve been able to do it on a consistent basis and we’re going to just fall away from it that quickly.
On if Sporting Park is losing its intimidation factor for opponents…
No. Not at all. All it takes is the guys is to go out and press a team, win a ball, go on a counter, score. The mojo comes back quickly. That part I’m not worried about. If you take Seattle, you take Portland, and other venues that sellout all the time and have great environments, it’s good for both teams because as a professional you don’t want to walk into an empty stadium. You don’t have any motivation at that point and you’re waiting on someone else to motivate you. So I don’t think so at all. It’s hard to intimidate someone when you’re down 3-1. You just don’t do it. There has always been a connection here between the fans and the players. If either one is not doing their part, you’re going to lose that connection and right now the players are struggling with giving up some balls.
On how deflating Houston’s first goal was to the Sporting KC side…
It was a soft goal. It was a really, really soft goal. That part was difficult to live with. But I really didn’t have a doubt that we’d get a goal. I knew we’d get a goal. But I didn’t expect us to give up two pieces and how soft they were. But we came out of the break and played well and I thought that we were moving the ball a lot better than we were in the first 16 minutes.
On the Feilhaber substitution and if it was injury-related…
In the first 16 minutes of the game he had turned his ankle. But at that point, I needed to change the team. I thought Graham in the middle might give us a little bit more going forward. So I thought bringing Soony on, someone who can score more goals, would be dangerous going forward in that area of the field.
On the short span between Houston’s second and third goal…
It always concerns me. I’d be lying if I said no. It always concerns you when you give up goals in bunches in short spans of time. Again, it’s something that we’re going to deal with. There’s nothing else to do except to go out and work on that stuff.
On Brad Davis’ service on set pieces…
I’ll be turning 48 here in a couple months. If you give me the same situation that Horst had and I’m by myself in front of the goal and the ball gets put in right to my head inside the six-yard box, I’m going to put it in the back of the net. It’s when he curls one in like Benny did here versus L.A. Zusi serves those balls into the box all the time. That has nothing to do with it. On those two situations, we were just very, very poor.
