The longest coaching story in the Major League Soccer has come to an end. On Monday, Sporting Kanzas City and Peter Vermes officially announced the cessation of cooperation after 591 matches under the guidance of a specialist. The last chord was the defeat from FC Dallas with a score of 1: 2, after which the team stayed with the only point in six starting matches of the season.
The temporarily acting head coach was appointed Kerry Zavagnin. Changes come into force immediately.
“It is difficult to list everyone I would like to thank after 20 seasons in senior positions in Kanzas-City Sporting,” said Vermes in a farewell statement. “I am grateful to everyone, especially the owners, for the opportunity to be the keeper of this club for two decades. I wish the club only the best in the future. ”
Vermes began his journey in Kansas City in November 2006 as a sports director, and in 2009 he headed the team. Under his leadership, the club has achieved significant success: the victory in the MLS Cup in 2013 and the triumphs in the US Open Cup in 2012, 2015 and 2017. During the work of a 58-year-old specialist, the team entered 11 times in the playoffs.
Impressive numbers - 591 matches as the head coach with an average of 1.49 points per game. Only two coaches in the history of MLS held more matches at the steering wheel of the League teams.
However, in recent years, the results of Sporting Kanzas City have noticeably worsened. If in the period from 2011 to 2018, the team got into the playoffs eight times and four times became the best in the regular championship, then over the past four seasons the club remained twice overboard the playoffs, and last year it finished in 27th place in the regular championship.
According to the analytics statbet, Sporting Kanzas City showed one of the worst performance of the attack efficiency in The league in the last season, which was one of the causes of unsatisfactory results.
Before this season, the club tried to turn the situation by investing in transfers. The acts of Jovelich from Los Angeles Galaxy, as well as Manu Garcia and Shapy Suleimanov from Aris Salonika, were acquired-the total cost of transactions amounted to about 9.85 million euros. However, these acquisitions have not yet met expectations.
Despite the rich experience of Vermes, recently there have been more and more signals that the coach did not have time for the development of MLS. Sporting Kansas needed a fresh approach and rebooting, which will now take place without a person who has determined the face of the franchise for many years.
