A couple of weeks ago, Sporting Kansas City was comfortably leading the Eastern Conference after an outstanding start for the second half of the season. Suddenly, everything started to change for the squad managed by Peter Vermes.
On August 23rd they lost 2-1 against D.C. United, losing the top spot of the Conference, and it seems that they haven’t recovered from that setback. Three defeats followed, including Saturday’s 2-1 loss against New York Red Bulls but for head coach Peter Vermes this won’t affect SKC’s title-defending aspirations.
“I thought we played well, and were a little bit unlucky, but it was much better tonight than what we’ve shown lately,” the manager told after Saturday’s defeat.
“If you play like that on a regular basis, and we’ve done that for years now, we’ll get our results like we always have.”
Sporting Kansas City players also agree with their coach and expect to turn things around in upcoming matches, as this is something that has happened to them in previous years.
Graham Zusi had his word regarding the team’s negative streak.
“I don’t think you can name a team that hasn’t gone through a little bit of a rut, or a stretch of tough games.
“Usually when we do, we bounce back a lot quicker than we have this time. I think we lost a little bit of our identity the past four, five games. Teams have been coming out and doing to us what we usually do to them, and out-fighting us. Which, for us, is unacceptable."
Despite reaching a fourth consecutive loss, Sporting Kansas City still remains in second place in the East and with seven weeks to go until the end of the regular season the defending MLS Cup champion is expected to secure a playoff spot.
