Sporting KC, Peter Vermes at forefront of player-testing efforts as MLS seeks return

If you ask Peter Vermes who deserves the most credit for getting the wheels moving for Major League Soccer to permit individual workouts at its club facilities, he’ll say the group of people who created the original proposal to make it happen in the first place.

Who is that group of people? Vermes and his backroom staff at Sporting Kansas City.

And now, the Sporting KC coach is ready to push onward with the next step toward returning to normalcy in sports. Starting late this week or early next, Sporting KC will provide coronavirus and antibody test kits for its players in a gradual move to integrate small-group training at its practice facilities.

“We’re not required to take tests at this time, but we’re going to kind of do a trial run to see where everyone is and see how we would perform that going forward,” Vermes said Wednesday.

Vermes is part of a league committee determining strategy around teams’ next steps toward implementing additional limited training opportunities and then, eventually, full-team training.

Right now, players can only work out in a small grid on a given field, and equipment, including soccer balls, cannot be transferred between players. Sporting KC’s Compass Minerals National Performance Center can accommodate a maximum of 12 players working out at once.

The next step is for every team to procure testing kits and produce safety protocols that continue to put player safety first.

Vermes said MLS has already requested that every team work with local companies to acquire testing kits. The idea is not only to avoid taking important testing kits away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but also to allow teams to get results back quickly.

Sporting KC is one of the first teams to do that.

“You don’t want to take a test and have to put it to a courier who has to fly halfway across the country to then get the results,” Vermes said. “We want to be able to have that quick turnaround within our locale, and that’s what we’ve been working on for quite some time.”

Vermes’ team has also been devising a protocol for allowing players to begin small-group training as soon as the tests have been administered. Players will still be required to complete protocols already in place, such as temperature checks and completing health questionnaires every night before bed and each morning when they awaken.

Once the tests are administered and Sporting returns to small practice sessions, the idea is to keep players in small groups and not allow intermingling within the squad. Doing this means that if a player does test positive, his area of close contact within the squad remains minimal and the club can work outward in testing other players and coaches.

“That’s why the groups, there’s only a certain number that we’ll have so that when you have all those players together, you then know if somebody in that group tests positive, then you know that group is the one group that will be together the whole time and we’re not going to be able to switch the guys up every day,” Vermes said.

Arguably the man at the forefront of MLS’ return from pandemic-mode, Vermes is also quick to point out that “this isn’t a competition.”

“Our owners are all partners in this business, right, of MLS,” Vermes said. “So it only makes sense to try and help each other, and whether it’s us or somebody else comes up with a really good way to do something, and we can (all) benefit from that, then we’re going to (do it).”

He also said that if another team is unable to obtain testing kits, his staff would be willing to share Sporting’s protocol and test-kit provider — as well as test kits, if need be.

“I’m going to keep working toward coming out of this,” Vermes said. “I’m not going to sit around just waiting for somebody else to do something.”

This story was originally published May 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Sporting KC, Peter Vermes at forefront of player-testing efforts as MLS seeks return."