Thirty-two years ago, Sporting KC’s Vermes helped U.S. end 40-year World Cup drought

It’s World Cup time, and the U.S. Men’s National Team has returned to soccer’s grandest stage after failing to qualify for the 2018 tournament.

Sporting KC manager Peter Vermes knows the feeling of breaking through after a drought — an even longer one, at that. He was a member of the 1990 squad that got the U.S. back to the World Cup after a 40-year absence.

In a recent interview with The Star, Vermes recalled traveling with the 1990 team from training camp in Switzerland to Italy, where they’d set up a base of operations for America’s first World Cup matches in four decades.

The journey entailed multiple buses and even security escorts. It was a big deal.

“One was for luggage and some people, and the other was the main staff and all the players,” Vermes recalled. “We had helicopters that were escorting us from a security perspective…I mean, it was real.”

Remember, nobody on that ‘90 roster, not even the coaches, had been to a World Cup. Moreover, no one could pull out an iPad on the plane or bus rides to show a then-20-year-old Eric Wynalda what playing on the World Cup stage would be like.

Vermes, in his early 20s at the time, and three other members of that United States team had played with various clubs in Europe. But the World Cup and all the drama, pagaentry and security it entailed was another beast entirely.

“At the end, we were naive,” Vermes said. “And the results showed it.”

The USMNT started with a 5-1 loss to then-Czechoslovakia. A match against Italy was next.

“The day before the game (against Italy), at training, we had a freaking huge brawl on the field,” Vermes said. “I mean, one team against the other, just going at it. Coaches and the staff had to break it up, and then we continued training.

“But that group was ready to go.”

The U.S. lost to 1-0 to Italy but had a few chances to score during the match. It was a learning experience for most on that American squad.

And that’s a critical difference between this year’s USMNT roster and the one the U.S. sent to the World Cup in 1990. The 1990 team was among the least-experienced the USMNT had fielded; the 2022 edition features a number of guys with international chops.

Weston McKennie has made 165 appearances in the UEFA Champions League, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A. Christian Pulisic has made 224 appearances in the Champions League, Bundesliga and English Premier league — including playing in and winning the Champions League Final, the global pinnacle of club competition.

“Every one of their players will have played more professional games than all the players in our (the 1990) team,” Vermes said. “You have a lot of guys that are playing in some of the best leagues in the world.

“They’re not gonna be intimidated when they play. They’re just not. They know that they can play, they can compete, and they can win.”

That is true, and so is this: The American team that will compete in Qatar has youth in common with the USMNT side from 32 years prior. Both teams, then and now, feature nine players under the age of 23.

Focus will be key for this U.S. Men’s National Team, Vermes said.

“It’s not gonna be because of a lack of experience,” he said. “It’s gonna be more of a loss of concentration.”

This year’s U.S. team is plenty talented, but no one player is likely to take over matches and win them by himself.

“On the American side, they’ll know to be successful, they have to do it together,” Vermes said. “They can’t carry anybody in the game, and everybody has to punch above their weight class in each one of those games. When you already know that going in, it’s very hard to lose focus.

“If you lose focus for one play, the caliber and the intensity of the game can kill you in that split-second because the quality of the games and the players on the field is so high.”

Bottom line, Vermes believes this American team could surprise some people.

“I think this team for sure has the ability to get outta the first round,” Vermes said. “I think soccer’s different than it was then, especially for us.”