How Peter Vermes and Sporting KC engineered MLS’ greatest one-season turnaround
The last time Sporting Kansas City was as bad as they were in 2019 they called themselves the Wizards and they fired the coach.
So, yes. The organization did some soul searching. Self evaluations are hard. Honest self evaluations are hard, anyway, and Sporting’s was more difficult than most because the questions hit at so much of what Peter Vermes has made himself and his club about.
Was it time to change how Sporting attacks?
Time to move away from beloved stars like Matt Besler and Graham Zusi?
Time to — and here’s the part where Vermes’ skin would break out in hives as his blood boiled — rebuild?
“You question yourself,” Vermes said. “Anybody who says they’re not, they’re lying.”
But the only time Vermes will use that word — rebuild — is to shoot it down. Retool, sure. Rebuild, well, he’d rather shotgun a gallon of saltwater.
Vermes’ insistence on this point goes all the way back to his literal first day on the job. The success of him, his coaches and players executing this plan is how Sporting went from next-to-last to the No. 1 seed in the MLS Western Conference playoffs. Sporting’s first game is against San Jose on Sunday at Children’s Mercy Park.
A year ago, his roster aging and injured and disheartened, Vermes could have chosen one of two paths: double down with a core that helped him to eight consecutive postseasons, or be characteristically unemotional and Belichick-ian in remaking the roster.
Instead, Vermes and his assistants chose a third option: they would retain and continue to rely on Besler, Zusi, and Roger Espinoza while updating their roles and teammates.
This is what Vermes often shorthands as “staying ahead of the curve.” That challenge requires different solutions for different moments, and here it’s worth noting that a significant portion of Sporting’s struggles last season can be fairly blamed on injuries and that even in a bad year the club made the CONCACAF Champions League semifinals.
Still, it became obvious that the team needed major change. MLS is still a relatively young league, and changing constantly. Teams adapt or are left behind. This is the context in which Vermes planned and executed one of the most dramatic one-year shifts in his 12 seasons in charge.
Besler, Zusi and Espinoza will each be in the club’s hall of honor someday, but the transition to the next generation has begun. Zusi had season ending foot surgery, and Besler and Espinoza have spent more time on the bench than any season in recent memory.
That’s a delicate balance involving high stakes and egos, on all sides. It requires trust, on all sides. But this was Vermes’ path forward, and a central part of how Sporting improved 18 spots in the Supporters Shield and 11 in the MLS standings, both the biggest one-year improvements in league history.
“I get the best of both worlds,” he said. “I get to decide what the experiment is going to be, and then I actually get to try the experiment.”
The challenge, essentially, was in creating a more versatile and consistent attack while regaining the defensive principles and retaining the 4-3-3 structure upon which Sporting built a decade’s worth of steady success.
The specifics include upgraded personnel in the back, more forward play in the middle, and more diversity in the top. For years, virtually every Sporting attack went through the striker — Erik Hurtado, Krisztian Nemeth, all the way back to Dom Dwyer.
Sporting spent a record transfer fee on Liga MX star Alan Pulido, who can serve as a target man but also drop back and allow the wingers (especially Johnny Russell) to cut inside or have enough space to beat a defender (or two) with the dribble.
“We didn’t panic,” Vermes said. “We didn’t say, ‘Oh my god we didn’t make the playoffs this year so we’re going to have to change everything.’ You’re never the same. You’re always evolving. But you also have a foundation in which you are starting and playing and working from.”
This is Vermes, and this is Sporting. He has been such a steady and pervasive force that it’s sometimes hard to know where one ends and the other begins. Here, some stories are worth telling.
Vermes is ambitious. When he was given full-time control of the club he told the ownership group the goal would be consistent championship contention. That’s more than a tagline. Sporting has won four trophies and qualified for all but one of the last 10 MLS postseasons.
Vermes is analytical, and cold. He said he made one decision on a player out of emotion, and when it backfired he promised to never do it again. The club comes first. If you can help the club, cool. If you can’t, he moves on.
Vermes is certain. As a player, he negotiated his own contract. One year, he had a bonus clause if he appeared in every match. The team was in a slump, and the manager wanted to flip the lineup one day. Vermes essentially ignored the lineup, and took the starting spot by force of personality.
Sporting needed all of these traits, plus a little luck. The club was among the earliest and heaviest investors in an academy system that is helping transform the first team. Sporting has eight players 22 or younger, all of them homegrown.
Gianluca Busio is the best known and most accomplished of the bunch, but the group includes Jaylin Lindsey and Felipe Hernandez and others who’ve changed how Sporting attacks and what it is capable of.
This is another of those stay-ahead-of-the-curve things Vermes talks about. MLS features more and better young players than ever before, to the point that Busio is just 18 years old but recently took a celebratory post-practice tunnel for his 50th appearance.
The group isn’t better than Vermes anticipated, but it is better quicker than Vermes anticipated. That’s helped make the transition away from older stars both more palatable and productive.
This is the magic trick that Sporting is attempting, and so far to successful results. The club faced a critical decision on beloved vets, but instead of walking away too early or holding on too long it changed the context in a way that allowed those proud stars to continue to be part of the solution.
This story was originally published November 19, 2020 at 5:00 AM.