Vermes focused on COVID-19 safety for Sporting KC players ahead of MLS playoff opener

When Peter Vermes first popped up on Zoom for his weekly news conference Friday morning, there was something that looked a little different about the Sporting KC head coach.

He hadn’t done anything crazy like dye his hair bright blue for the playoffs, or decide to get a neck tattoo commemorating KC’s return to the top of the MLS Western Conference.

Instead, he was no longer wearing his dark blue face mask dotted in little Sporting KC badges that has become synonymous with him on TV and press conferences. In its place sat a striped mask that read “KC AS ONE” across the front with the “KC” surrounded by the Sporting KC crest.

“It’s a really cool mask,” Vermes said. “It talks about ‘as one,’ meaning not only in competition but in everything else, as a city and everything else we’ve come together as one to try to do the best we can through this time.”

But it’s also a bit more than just a “really cool mask.” Set to be announced on Monday, the mask was created in collaboration with Kansas City-based food bank Harvesters. Available to the public starting next week, every mask bought will help feed 18 people.

But Vermes isn’t just wearing the mask for the pure purpose of philanthropy. Now more than ever, it’s imperative that Sporting Kansas City staff and players do everything in their power to avoid positive COVID-19 cases.

If there is a positive test, it could mean forfeit in the playoffs. Sporting KC kicks off its quest for the MLS Cup on Nov. 22 as it hosts the No. 8 seed San Jose Earthquakes.

“I will tell you that if for some reason a team cannot participate and is in real trouble, the league will cancel the match, the team that couldn’t play will forfeit and the other team will move on,” Vermes said.

For Sporting KC, who enter the playoffs as the No. 1 seed in the West and with a genuine chance of MLS Cup glory, COVID-19 precautions are as important as ever.

But that doesn’t mean that Vermes and his staff are all of a sudden barraging the team with new rules and precautions. The same rules that have been in place all season will remain in place — all doors in the facility being left open, daily testing, sanitization of equipment, etc. — along with Vermes reminding the team of the importance of making sensible choices. That means not attending house parties, bars, or any sort of enclosed location with people in close proximity.

“I’ve talked to the guys, I continue to do that, I’m probably a broken record to them,” Vermes said. “But they’ve done a good job thus far. It’s now time for all of us to try to continue to do it.”

One option that was floated around the backroom staff was a bubble for the team for the duration of the playoffs. No friends, no family, no outside guests.

But considering Sporting KC worked so hard for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, Vermes has no desire to make it feel like the players are no longer at home.

“It would be really difficult if you were at a hotel the whole time, the difficulty would be family members, all those other things, when they’re so close by,” Vermes said. “Mentally, it’s been a challenging time and I think we’ve got to do everything we can to replicate some type of normalcy that they have when we’re in town.”

Ultimately, it all comes down to trust for Vermes.

Kansas City has had three positive COVID-19 tests this season, with the most recent of those on Nov. 5. None of those cases resulted in an outbreak and Vermes insists that none of the positive cases came from players being irresponsible.

“I say this all the time, it’s not easy. And when I say it’s not easy, you can get it and you can get it from anywhere,” Vermes said. “You can get it going from the grocery store, you can get it doing whatever, there’s just a lot of different things that can happen and it’s a tough, tough situation for everybody to just try to stay as healthy as possible.”

“I trust the guys. If someone gets it they’re going to get it because it’s an invisible enemy, not just because they did something stupid.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2020 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Vermes focused on COVID-19 safety for Sporting KC players ahead of MLS playoff opener."