Sporting KC’s Peter Vermes explains the best sports GIF of 2020 so far
Reasonable minds can disagree, but the best part of the best sports GIF of 2020 is the second time Peter Vermes says puck off. He did not say puck, of course.
He didn’t say puck off the first time, when he had a look of genuine shock.
He didn’t say puck off the third time, when his look was more of acceptance, like a bear hug of this new normal when some guy — when that guy — told him to puck off. Cursing is an art form, and in this moment Vermes is saying the word and holding his face just so — I guess this is real, this fool has challenged me, and while he may regret this it is now go-time.
All of that is great, and some of this is like picking your favorite child, but the best puck off is the second puck off. Vermes, Sporting Kansas City’s manager and technical director and engine, is so taken aback by a Vancouver assistant’s gall that his shoulders rise, his eyes squint and his body takes a step back just to make sure.
It’s a finely tuned master of his craft at the very top of his game.
Behold Vermes at his Vermes-est, in a three-second-or-so clip from Sporting’s season-opening win over Vancouver that will justifiably live longer than us all:
Vermes’ daughter was first to tell him he’d gone viral. Then came Rob Thomson, Sporting’s chief communications officer, to show him the clip. That’s when Vermes knew.
“That was a little Jersey coming out, for sure,” he said.
Vermes has something of a, well, a reputation. He is fiery. He is active. He screams. He curses. And not just curses, but does so in a precise and deliberate and productive way. He truly is an artist in the most effective uses of the words the networks (and newspapers) bleep out.
“I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing,” Vermes said.
Before we go any further, we should set the scene. Because Vermes’ first reaction when he saw the clip was that people wouldn’t understand. That it would be another clip of him using foul language. That he would come off as a bully, or a jerk.
The clip came after Vermes thought Khiry Shelton was fouled twice, and then was immediately whistled for a foul that should not have been called. In Vermes’ telling of the story, he said, “Ref, there were two fouls before,” and even if we can all assume he probably used some other words too, well, this is when our show starts.
A member of Vancouver’s coaching staff — Vermes asked we not say who — told Vermes to, um, puck off.
That’s when Vermes offered the first puck off, the genuinely shocked puck off.
Then the Vancouver coach said it again, which is when Vermes’ shoulders rose, his eyes squinted, his feet moved back.
The third one was, then, something of a verbal confirmation that everyone had seen and heard the same thing.
OK, now here’s Vermes’ reaction to the clip’s fame, a mix of regret for being caught on camera but unapologetic about its substance:
“How should I say this? I don’t like the fact that thing is out there of me saying that. It doesn’t look good, and I know I have a responsibility to a lot of different things. But it’s hard for me to also take away that there’s an in-game mode that happens sometimes.
“I will say this: I have never — and I can honestly say never — I’m never the instigator of stuff like that. I never speak to the other team’s bench in those types of moments. I don’t say those things to other people like that. I don’t say that to them. Now, I also have to protect my team, myself, the group, and those are certain things that sometimes happen in games. They happen. I’m going to protect my team.
“But I don’t talk to other teams’ players. I don’t talk to other teams’ coaches. I talk to my players and the referees. That’s who I talk to.”
Vermes then mentioned that at times he’s responded to harassment of his players from fans that he thought went over the line, but the point he’s making is clear. He wishes it wasn’t caught on video but doesn’t regret sticking up for his team.
The reaction from his players, as you might expect, was entirely different.
“It’s a talent,” defender Matt Besler said.
“Hilarious,” goalkeeper Tim Melia said. “I love it.”
“I think he’s been GIF’d a few times in his career, and that one takes the cake of all his reactions,” defender Graham Zusi said. “I’ve watched it repeatedly.”
Cursing is an intricate part of Vermes’ world, enough so that Besler says the players can always tell when he’s mic’d up before a game because the speeches are clean(er). They’re also, if we’re being honest, a little awkward because they’re not natural. Once, before a game, Vermes told a story about competing in a triathlon. In the telling, Vermes was smoking the guy next to him and dropping f-bombs to make sure he knew it.
“He got to the end of the story and he was trying to relate it somehow to soccer and us getting ready for the game,” Besler said. “At the end we were like, ‘Alright, great triathlon. Glad you crushed it.’”
So, anyway. That’s the story behind the early favorite for soccer’s best GIF of 2020. It was Vermes’ inner Robert De Niro coming out in a piece of team-protecting performance art.
We have a happy ending, too. After the game, Vermes said, the Vancouver assistant (who for our purposes today will remain anonymous) apologized. Vermes accepted.
That would’ve made a boring GIF, probably.
This story was originally published March 3, 2020 at 3:41 PM with the headline "Sporting KC’s Peter Vermes explains the best sports GIF of 2020 so far."