We need to talk about Vermes with poll

"The problem of competing.....in MLS" - see SKC 2019 - 2023. They have not been competitive in MLS since 2018. A quick review of the standings shows SKC finishing 11th (2019), 3rd (2021), 12th (2022), 8th (2023) and currently 12th (2024). Not counting COVID year. We're into year 6 of being mediocre. PV has kept his job and there is zero pressure on him to do better. That means SKC will continue to not be competitive in 2025. As I said before, the mindset is that of a provincial club. Owners are just happy to be in the league. Every few years we'll beat some USL teams and win silverware (in the Open Cup, because, lets face it....the days of contending for Supporters Shield and MLS Cup are long gone).

CCL is a different animal. This is one of the very first instances of PVs deployment of 4D chess. Remember altitude camp and the use of hypobaric chambers for sleeping to beat Toluca? Remember me continuing to repeat that SKC were Toronto FC that season (who died in MLS because of CCL focus)? No....well that approach resulted in a super fit team that did beat Toluca but then died towards the middle of the season because no human can sustain peak performance for a sport like soccer, which is essentially year round. Apparently the SKC ATs skipped class during discussions on periodization and athletic performance. SKC MLS 2018 (good) led to participating in CCL, which led to SKC MLS 2019 (bad). Rather than buying or developing players, I'd expect more 4D chess with similar results to last time they were in CCL.

Look...we all know where the roster stands. We all saw how "active" they were during transfer window 1 of 3. We can all hope that they will sign 10 new players, get ride of "The Anchors" (aka Pulido, Salloi, JFR) but lets be real. They'll make a few deals during the winter. Pulido and Salloi will be back. They won't be competitive in either competition. They'll beat some USL teams in Open Cup and tell us how important that is. PV will keep his job. Then we'll talk about 2026.

 

In the form of a question....

Since 2019, the club has finished: 11th (2019), 3rd (2021), 12th (2022), 8th (2023) and you are currently 12th (2024), with the club likely to miss the playoffs for the third time in six years. (Here's the question) Why does ownership believe that you and your technical staff are the right people to get the club back to being competitive? Why should fans have faith in you and your technical staff when you have been the group in charge during this decline?

 

So the town hall was held. Extremely small turnout. I would guess 35 Cauldron attendees with seating set up for 160. I asked the first questions. Even though Reid said the purpose was to be transparent and answer questions, he completely dodged my Gavin Wilkinson question about how Gavin was selected especially given the Athletic reporting that he wasn’t on the search firm list of candidates. Reid said he wasn’t going to add to what the owners’ press release stated. I then commented to Vermes about how disappointed I was that he dampened our celebration of our St. Louis playoff victory by coming down on the field and chastising those Cauldron members who had dared to criticize him. He got hot and went on a rant that he wasn’t going to roll over and take that kind of disrespect. I tried to counter that I didn’t except him to roll over but his timing was horrible but of course he tried to spin that as comparable to when he had to go down to the Cauldron and tell them to stop throwing water bottles onto the field. The biggest things I took away from the rest of the town hall was that (i) PV continues to throw the owners under the bus, saying it was their fault that he didn’t have the budget to spend on players, and now that has changed, and (ii) we will need three more windows before we see a real transformation to be competitive, this winter, next summer and the following winter. He also said we could play as early as Feb. 4 in the CCCL and even if we signed players over the winter they likely won’t have visas to play by then, so he is trying to get the league to move the Club’s starting games to later.

 

Thanks for providing this update and insight.

Sounds like 3 windows became 4 and that Reid said don't expect the team to be competitive until 2026?!?!?

SKC deserve relegation.

 

It was PV not Reid that said the Club will need 3 more windows.

 

Not giving PV/Reid/Illig a pass, just going back and reading the quotes from Sam's piece that reference the next three windows. First we have Sam seemingly paraphrasing Illig regarding the three windows.

Second we have a direct quote about it.

Knowing their inactivity in the summer and looking at the roster, being seemingly unable to really start the make over this window, the lack of the new TD at the time the interview was done, and the number of contracts ending this year and next year could he have been already been giving a pass on this summer and the three windows started this winter? Again not trying to justify it, just trying to figure out the spin in my head.

 

Regardless of if it is three windows from then or three windows from now, the head coach is saying the club won't be competitive until 2026. Head coach and ownership are telling us they will be rebuilding all of 2025. Hidden in those statements is "don't expect better results until window 3".

As I said previously, minus a blip here and a blip there, the club has NOT been competitive since 2019.

As fans, we're beiing told that essentially the same group in charge of the club through its phase of managed decline (2019 through 2024) is somehow going to pull their collective heads out of their collective arses and return the club to something better than perpetual mediocrity. Seriously, is anyone buying this?

 

It's becoming more clear that ownership is not super interested in this project. To allow the coach to continually throw shade at their lack of funding for players suggests that the owners don't care about taking those arrows. It's a constant refrain from the coach about ownership not doing enough - you'd think an owner with any sense of pride would say 'enough' at some point.

My fervent hope at this point is that the ownership cares at least enough to keep the team and not sell to a group that would move to another city.

 

I grew up in Italy and understand how terrible it is for a team to go from Serie A to B. That said, relegation provides a lot financial motivation for the Como's, Venezia's, Monza's, Palermo's, Salernitana's, Sampdoria's, Sasuollo's of the world to try and stay up. In MLS, the crap at the bottom can just exist with no incentive, other than ownership's pride, to suck less.

I'm not advocating for relegation in the US, the USSF is what it is, but SKC's performance since 2019 is not deserving of first division futbol and they don't deserve the financial reward of being in a first division.

Unfortunately, this is the only conclusion a sane person can make at this point. There is literally no other situation (in business or in sport) where a CEO/COO is still in charge six years into being mediocre. Additionally, there is no company or team that would allow the CEO/COO who oversaw the prolonged decline of a team/business to rebuild that team/business, and certainly they would not be given over one year to show that they are competitive again.

 

I did a little excel exercise over the lunch hour where I looked at cumulative pts earned in league play from 2019 through 2024 (as the standings are today). I would need someone to check my work as it involved some manual manipulations, but (per my non peer reviewed work) SKC are 19th in total points over that stretch. Keep in mind that in 2019 there were 24 teams in the league, with Inter Miami, Nashville, Charlotte, stL and Austin coming into the league over that time.

Six seasons is no small sample size. To be 19 of 24, with no change in leadership and that same leadership team entrusted to turn things around, is an absolute joke.

PS- I feel good about my work as Toronto finished last of the 24 in the league in 2019. You feel better about it being right if TFC are at the bottom.

 

https://www.backheeled.com/mls-trophy-window-when-each-team-win-cup-supporters-shield/

 

Took losing the USOC to bring this back to the front. Davies' and Bogert's comments on Burns bring all my issues with the hire back to the front too.

Sporting KC fell short vs. LAFC in the US Open Cup Final, but what does that mean for Head Coach Peter Vermes 🤔@tombogert & @CharlieDavies9 discuss the future of the club as well as what changes need to be made ⚽ pic.twitter.com/lCD5NECCZA

— Golazo America (@GolazoAmerica) September 26, 2024

 

Bogert nails it. PV coach is OK, but sucks as czar of soccer. Also comments on roster sucking, which it totally does. Davies nails it too, in that PV will never accept a diminished role. They all nail it in that the situation is basically hopeless for fans. Club sucks, has no identity, owners don't care, same song I have been singing for years.

Time for fans to stop going to games. Time for the Cauldron to stop cheering, singing and supporting. Time to start organized walkouts. Time for podcasters to go 100 percent negative. Time for "media" to start reporting what is actually happening, not the powder puff pieces that have been pushed out there because they are worried they will lose access to the club. We all need to start hitting owners in the pocketbook. The club is done for as long as PV remains czar.

 

Yeah they all really seemed to miss a very clear question. They asked "how long will the owners put up with this?" when the revealing question is "why have the owners continued to put up with this and why should we expect that to change?"

I don't think Burns is a sacrificial lamb. Because I don't think it's a coincidence that they hired him (a notably hard-ass negotiator) to replace Bliss (a butter-soft negotiator). Vermes has said pretty clearly that he hates the salary and contract side of the game, which is why he has a GM. Tom doesn't think Bliss did anything wrong? Have you seen the extensions for Pulido and Shelton? The wages Salloi or Radoja are on? The team is hamstrung by bloated and overlong contracts. Fall guy or not, I'm pretty convinced Bliss was a big part of all that.

 

Bliss 100% needed to go whether Vermes stayed or not, Bliss was an issue. That doesn't exclude PV, but both can be true, Bliss was a sacrificial lamb to take pressure off PV, while also rightfully being fired.

 

New learning experience for KC kindergarteners: Which of these things are not like the others:

Kansas City Chiefs, Kansas City Current, Sporting Kansas City, Kansas City Royals

(Hint for the kindergartners only - think of winning records)

Extra credit - which of these teams has the longest tenured coach?

 

One of them doesn't start with "Kansas City"? Am I right?

 

Right answer for the wrong reason still counts as a right answer.

 

So what you're saying is...time to rebrand to Kansas City Sportings so we can have a winning record?