SoccerWise - Peter Vermes Leaves SKC + Weekend Recap MLS/NWSL

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

Another week another weekend recap ruined by big breaking news on Monday morning. After 20 years in charge of SKC (and 23 with the club) Peter Vermes is parting ways with Sporting. David digs into his legacy as well as what went wrong to finally end Vermes' run. Then he recaps the top stories from the weekend in MLS & NWSL. 0:30 Peter Vermes Leaving SKC14:00 MLS Weekend Recap22:00 NWSL Weekend Recap Soccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everybody, welcome back to Soccer Wise for your weekend recap episode. Comes to you every single week to give you an idea of what the big storylines were, what went on over the course of the weekend and maybe anything that you missed. But for the second week in a row, I've had to rerecord this episode to line up with breaking news that came out on Monday. Last week, Mark Korkorian announced that he was officially stepping away as CSO of Washington Spirit and Montreal Impact.

Parted ways with Laurence Courtois, their head coach just five games into the season. This week, you're thinking everything's good? And instead we have an even bigger story as Sporting Kansas City has parted ways with Peter Vermeese. Peter Vermeese in charge of Sporting Kansas City for 20 years as sporting director and then a sporting director,

chief soccer officer and co-head coach. He played for this team all the way back in 2000, winning an MLS Cup. So 25 years around this organization, turned it into something we had never really seen before in major league soccer. And now the club has officially parted ways. Kary Zavagnin will take over as interim manager. Zavagnin has been

Peter Vermeese's assistant for a very long time. Mike Burns, of course, was hired recently to work in a front office sporting role under Peter Vermeese. So we'll be controlling a lot of the decisions for now. We don't know what the process is from here. Do they hire a chief soccer officer to then hire a coach? Do they elevate Burns and Zvagnin full time into their positions? Does the ownership choose to go about a coaching process and hire a coach first?

These are the messy parts that have to get sorted out, but it was clearly needed. The club hasn't finished above 7th place in the Western Conference since 2021. They are now on a continuous 10-match winless streak in MLS competition dating back through last year, September 19th of 2024. And over the last seven years when it's been good it's then been very bad. Huge ups followed by craters the following year. This has been built as one of the most successful teams in Major League Soccer. You could argue over the last decade plus they are the most successful

MLS Original. They set the standard for rebranding for MLS originals from what was the 96 league into the modern era. And a lot of why the calls came out, including from the supporters groups, putting out a letter yesterday calling on ownership to move on from Peter Vermeese, that the expectations are where they are, are because of what Peter Vermeese built.

An MLS cup, three US open cup victories as well, eight straight years of making the postseason. And in 2023, we saw the retirement of Graham Zussi, the last of the sort of golden generation that put together this incredible run in a brand new soccer specific facility back in 2011. Zusi was part of this absurd cohort of players that were drafted by Sporting Kansas City from 2008 to 2012. They drafted Chance Myers, Roger Espinosa,

Matt Bezer, Graham Zusi, Teal Bunbury, CJ Sipong and Dom Dwyer. That's three World Cup players in one draft. NBA teams, WNBA teams, NFL teams, they don't hit on drafts like this. And drafts, of course, as you know, are not the main source of talent in Major League Soccer. They supplemented these players with other American-raised players that they brought in from around MLS in trades and acquisitions. Kai Kamara, Benny Failhaber, Iko Parasestinovic, and of course Tim Melia, who was a pool goalkeeper at the time signed by the league as an emergency goalkeeper to fill in for any team

that had dropped below their third backup and needed a goalie for the week. Melia went on to become one of the best goalkeepers in MLS history. In the span these players played in, they made eight straight playoffs, they won the four trophies, they hosted MLS history. In the span these players played in they made eight straight playoffs, they won the four trophies, they hosted MLS Cup, they doubled their attendance when they opened their new building which has

become one of the jewels of American soccer. Peter Vermeese in his role as chief soccer officer outside of coaching added a training ground that was built to host USSF events, four US soccer mainly coaching and referee education programs, a one of a kind facility. US Soccer National Coaching Education Center is now built in Kansas City's training ground, and it is the place that most coaches go to take their final courses.

It's built specifically for that purpose. There's a super pitch that was designed by Peter Vermeese. There are stands set up alongside the field with coaching boards and all the other things and classrooms to allow coaches to learn. Peter Vermeese has done things in Kansas City that I don't know anyone else in Major League Soccer has ever done for their soccer

market. He is the only person to win MLS Cup as a player and as a coach. Kansas City is undoubtedly a soccer city. They claim they are Soccer City USA. And you have to look at the success of sporting Kansas City in that market in what has helped build that. And when you look at that, you have to look again at Peter Vermeese to win as a player, to come back as a sporting director, to help build the new stadium, open the new stadium to success, turn it into something we had never seen in Major League Soccer, sell out crowds, loud supporters, specific sections, the history that they were able to build, painting the wall when they won US Open Cups.

All of it has helped turn Kansas City into one of the markets to go watch soccer. It will be a host city at the World Cup in 2026. And a lot of this goes to Peter Vermeese, not everything, but I don't know that there's one single individual character around major league soccer who can say they have affected the game in a region as much as Peter Vermeese has done with this club. Now, of course, in being let go now, the good and the bad you

have to talk about. So the players I talked about being drafted, the incredible spine that he built for this club, which allowed them to have the longevity In success he elevated three of them to designated player positions Outside of that they've signed 15 DPS two of them are new in Jovalich and Manu Garcia Who were just signed of the other 13 who came from outside of MLS? I don't know that you could call a single one a success besides Johnny Russell. And even that might be debatable. A lot of it came down to health. Over time, Alan Pulido's of the world who could not stay on the field. Even when you go back and look at Diego Rubio and what he

did at his peak, injuries came into the conversation. But there are so many players in this group of designated players that have been signed by sporting kansas city that just were not modern dp level players the jerseys fernandes's and johan crozet's of the world the namanya radosha's and gaudi kindas of the world and so it felt like as the league has shifted and become a little more global and opened up Things started to get a little bit stale at this club They struggled to keep up and there is now a lot for them to do because of how ubiquitous Peter vermice was in building up the club. He has his fingerprints all across what this club has built and He earned a lot of that. He's American soccer hall of famer. As I said, I think he is historic

in what he has done with this group. He coached over 600 matches for sporting Kansas City. He is third all time in wins in MLS history. You could say he is first in non-shootout wins because Bruce Arena and Ziggy Schmidt, the two ahead of him, would have gotten wins through the shootout. Not enough probably for him to jump them, but it is an impressive spot for him to sit. He had, of course, an incredible playing career playing in the 1990 World Cup. He was an attacker. Then he became a center back and went on to win that

2000 MLS Cup in front of the only MLS, probably MVP goalkeeper in history in Tony Miola building the spine of that team. A New Jersey and Rutgers native who made Kansas City his home and has changed soccer forever in the region. I want to close this section out here with a couple comments from our Discord. Sporting Kansas City fans in there didn't have time to ask them if they wanted these to be read out so I won't put their names on them but just I think goes to show how big of a presence Peter Vermeese is and how tough of a moment this is. As a Cauldron Capo friend of mine said today is not a day of celebration. Yes, we're happy that meaningful change is happening, but it had to happen at the expense of someone who helped give sporting the identity that we're

reminiscing for. Another comment, I'm astounded that it's not it's not that I didn't think they'd do it, but I didn't think they'd do it as early this in the year. It's going to be a huge transition even if he's not doing as much as he was in the 2010s. There's never been a huge transition, even if he's not doing as much as he was in the 2010s. There's never been a sporting KC without Peter Vermeese. And there have only been a few years of the Wizards without PV. He left the club light years ahead of where he found it.

It's akin to the Cowboys firing Tom Landry in the late 80s. This commenter followed up with, the last time I attended a match for this team that Peter Vermeese didn't oversee, besides the few in 2021 he missed because of COVID, they had a different name. They played at a minor league baseball park in a league half of its current size and I was in seventh grade. Another comment. I hate seeing the comments on socials. I understand the frustration,

but Peter made KC Soccer what it is and it sucks to see folks spitting on him on his way out the door He really got to see the full life cycle built it from the ground up delivered trophies Set the standard and got fired for not meeting the standard He said would just like to see KC fans be grateful for what he did just hate to see it end this way But how else could it have ended and a final one here from someone who knows the club very well about sort of the next steps. I don't know what to expect at this point. It will really depend on money, honestly.

I'd prefer Burns is not elevated to CSL and that they hire a president to do that, but I don't have a read on how this will play out. I think a lot of folks sort of generally understand how much Vermeese did at SKC, but I don't know if everyone really understands how deep it goes. He literally had sign off on front desk attendance and training facility. His hands were on everything

and everyone there was hired by him. It's going to be a wild next 6 to 12 months as they figure out how to decouple all of that. What is Peter Vermeese's future? I don't know. I did a show called The Ball is Round Montreal last night with Andy Coronado, who you'll know from my Montreal preview to start the year here at Soccer Wise, about Laurent Courtois, his future, that club. That was a whole conversation completely different than Peter Vertnees.

Does he still wanna be involved? Does he still wanna be involved in day-to-day? I think it became very clear that the league had become too strong for one person to have the role that he had and Sporting Kansas City probably on top of that didn't resource him well enough to do it right to have a front office that could operate independently of him and a coaching staff that could operate independently of him so that he didn't have to be across both of them and you you start to always see stale ideas.

One of the comments made by Sporting Kansas City and by other people covering this story is he wasn't just the longest tenured coach in Major League Soccer by a mile and will probably be the longest tenured coach at one club ever in MLS. He is one of the longest tenured managers in global soccer. You do not see runs like

this and so eventually it will come to an end and now we're going to start to see where he affected the club, what needs to shift, what needs to change. Is it all about player ID? Is there some ideas in training? Is it tactical stuff? Is there medical ideas that could be shifted and move forward? And for Peter Vermeese, does he want to coach? Does he want to go out and be a coach for another team in Major League Soccer? We have seen these sort of second eras now from the Ben Olsons of the world. Does he want to be a sporting director in Major League Soccer? He seems like a very interesting person to take over

a role potentially at US Soccer to help build the sport and change the sport. I talked about that with Mark Korkorian last year who has better ideas about the way the game could shift in the experience right now for players from the youth levels all the way through to the pro ranks in the national team than a Peter Vermeese. Is it a role with the league? Is it a role consulting with other teams? I think there's a lot of different ways this could end. I think it's one of those days, as everyone here said,

but especially our sporting Kansas City fans and our Discord mentioned, it is a bittersweet day and it is a new dawn, but it is a time of intense curiosity and mystery for sporting Kansas City for the first time in 20 years. They will go into a match this weekend without Peter Vermeese as their head coach. Let's stick in MLS and get our weekend recap here. We start with some big injury returns. Lionel Messi, Payne Sill, Lozano all back for their

squads this weekend. Messi came off the bench and scored a winner basically on his first touch against the Philadelphia Union. Miami showed their strength and their quality against a Philadelphia team that was sitting in third place in the Eastern Conference in this match without Messi. They showed their depth. They've added to that depth we talked about last week with the addition of a Bondo, another attacking piece, but they've shown, I think, an ability to play more composed and measured games. They handled Philadelphia's pressure well. They handled, once Philadelphia did score, the 2-1 lead very well.

Also, on top of that, to see this one out. So a big result for Inter Miami, and great to see Messi back on the field. Chucky Lozano returned in maybe the game of the weekend, an absurd 3-2 win for San Diego over LAFC. All five goals came in the first half and then LAFC picked up an early red card in the second half and San Diego was able to see it out for their first

home victory of the year, Igor Jesus picking up that red card for this LAFC team. San Diego had gotten out though to a 3-0 lead. Some gifts from Hugo Larice in this, some poor goaltending from someone who has been really good in his time around MLS but especially this season. But San Diego hit with some injuries playing down a couple players, moving players around in positions they continue to look cohesive and connected and I thought LAFC would be a huge bogey for them because we saw Austin's ability to get out on the break and get out in transition and I thought that would be a worry for San Diego. San Diego handled it better this week. Paddy McNair back into the team a couple other pieces

back into the team. Franco Negri getting the start and you saw the composure and a little bit more experience from this group. Even in giving up part of that lead, they were able to see this one out in San Diego, continuing to stay at the top of the Western Conference. Payne still returned in a 2-1 home loss to Orlando. Christian Ramirez got the opening goal to make it 1-0 and the Galaxy not able to see it out for their first win of the season. A questionable PK helped Orlando pull things

back and then Luis Muriel continues his hot streak. It was a 90th minute winner off a free kick. It was right on John McCarthy's hands who fumbled it into the goal and now LA Galaxy have a serious goalkeeper problem as both goalkeepers have struggled to start the year. This goal though from Uriel was not the only late winner in MLS. It was a storyline this weekend. Carlos Hiel got the Rebs their first win of the season as well as their first goal scored in both his goals. But he had a 97th minute PK winner for the Rebs

after an earlier PK was called off after VAR review in which it turned out the ball had gone out of bounds before the foul had been committed. It was the first two goals of the season for the Rebs. Heel with both of them the first one an unreal finish off a set piece to open up the goal scoring. Go watch that one if you've missed it. Carlos he'll sort of reminding everyone how good he can be a late winner in Atlanta in an insane comeback at home for Atlanta United over NYCFC. Atlanta was down three, one in the second half. They came back to win it four, three off of a late,

I'm going to call it here a miscommunication between Tiago Martins and Matt Friis as every goalkeeper on the planet would like you to know, it was not a miscommunication, it was a mistake from Tiago Martins. He tried to shield the ball and call Matt Freese out to pick up the ball. Every goalkeeper I've ever played with, as well as myself playing as a center back at very low levels, has been taught that it is not your role to call a goalkeeper out. The goalkeeper makes the decision themselves as basically the quarterback of the situation

in which they are the only one who has a full vision of everything that's going on on the field in front of them. So the goalkeeper decides when they come out and when they want to play it away. Thiago Martins tried to pull Matt Freries out to take the ball and he was so close to the ball that it hit his chest before Latte Loth got around him and then had the dink finish with Matt Fries off his line. Martins then screaming at Matt Fries and you could see all across social media the former players, especially goalkeepers, but other players, other positions as well, coming to the defense of Matt Fries in that one. Either way, it was a special game for Atlanta. As they fell behind, they moved Marchuk deeper into midfield. They brought Almiron into the

10 and you could feel Miguel Almiron's DNA on the game the moment he moved. It felt like 2018 again. The game was played at a high tempo. He was on the left and the right picking up the ball where he wanted to, putting defenders under pressure. Then he pops up with a goal off a header and you could just feel the energy in the team. It is something that has to be looked at by this Atlanta team. They don't have a ton of ball-winning quality in central midfield don't have a ton of ball winning quality in central midfield. They have a lot of ball playing quality

in central midfield already with Klieg and Schliez. I don't know how Moronchuk fits into all of that, but you cannot look past what you saw with Almiron in that role. There was a PK winner in Nashville as well as Kevin Denke scored in the 91st minute brutal handball on Zimmerman in a game that I didn't think Cincinnati really deserved to win. Thought Nashville had them on their heels.

I thought Nashville was the one trying to push the play, but Denke gets the PK, a correct call, but a harsh one as Corey Baird heads the ball down towards frame. Zimmerman is trying to mark him. It comes down off his hand and goes out of bound. But it was on Nashville to win this game. Hani Mukhtar had his PK saved. He has missed four of his last seven penalties as reported by Ben Wright. And the PK save was then followed up by I would call a triple save by Roman Celentano who had a match winning performance

in this one. I've talked about Nashville a bunch over the last few weeks. I love Eddie Texas. I like a lot of what this Nashville team is building. There has to be that goal scoring quality on the end of all of it. And this is now Hany's chance. It feels like he can take, he can let go of the reins a little on chance creation, play a little higher, find his chances and start to score some goals.

The weather was a brutal factor in MLS and NWSL this weekend. Toronto had freezing rain. You had rain across the Midwest affecting a number of games from the Rebs game, that first game of the day, all the way through into Chicago and across the entire league. The biggest one though was on Sunday in St. Louis the game was weather delayed in the second half because of lightning. Austin hung on though to get another slim 1-0 win.

They remain in the top three in the Western Conference. Ozuni got the winner off a great attacking play from Ouzman Bukhari. So that's the formula for Austin. They were not Uber dangerous, but St. Louis attack again looks anemic and St. Louis not able to find a way to score a goal. And Austin gets the one zero win. There's a ton of other news going on

around Major League Soccer, Concord Calf Champions Cup is back this week. So we will have all of your coverage of that here at Soccer Wise. We also have a set of US Open Cup games coming up this week so we will cover all of that for you here at Soccerwise and it sounds like RSL is on the verge of being sold alongside with the Utah Royals out in Salt Lake City. It sounds like the former owners of the Utah Jazz, the Miller family are going to purchase the club

from the Blitzer Group. The Blitzer Group, of course, took it over and acquired it after Deloitte Hanson was sort of pushed out as ownership. And so Hectic Times at Salt Lake City as well, not the only club dealing with this but one of the many and of course it affects things on both the MLS and NWSL side with the Utah Royals as well being now a part of this situation. On the NWSL side we go back to Kansas City. Temuah Schoenge continues to set and break her own records in NWSL.

She has now scored in 15 of the last 16 regular season games, including seven straight. It's the second longest streak in NWSL history after the eight match run that started this streak. So scored in eight straight games, missed one game, and now has scored in seven straight, including all nine home matches and all three games to start this year. Xhwinga is a threat for MVP and Golden Boot once again and this KC current team looks better than they did last year. Lorena looks like a real replacement

in goal. They look deep, they look dangerous, and they just got even better as they've announced this weekend that Bia Zanoretto, the starting Brazilian center forward for the team last year has been officially taken off the season ending injury list and activated for play this year. So this team could get even better as they continue this season. Out in Portland, we saw a celebration of Becky Sauerbronn.

Becky, of course, announcing her retirement in the off season, so not an opportunity to celebrate her like we saw last season for Christine Sinclair. So she got her flowers this weekend. So Becky Sauerbronn celebrated, special scarf sold before the game, had her opportunity to be cheered by the crowd and talk to the crowd down on the field. And Portland Thorns not able to get a win for Becky, but they got a 0-0 draw with the North Carolina

Courage in this one. Another bright match from Olivier Moultrie. Kaia Hanks got the start in this one. The young college player who just got acquired or just got signed late on in the off season. Worrying start to the year for North Carolina Courage. Two goals scored across the first three games in NWSL play. They are really struggling to create chances right now. They are struggling to be goal dangerous.

And that is the story for this North Carolina team. And other big news, Trinity Rodman making comments before the game this weekend in which the Washington Spirit went out, got a 2-0 win over Bay, that her back just may never be the same for the rest of her career. She talked about it's all about management now and trying to manage it from here on out to keep her career. She talked about it's all about management now and trying to manage it from

here on out to keep her healthy. She is back in the US women's national team roster. We will talk about that game coming up this week as there is no NWSL this weekend, but the US will play a back to back set of friendlies in gold cup rematch, gold medal rematch, excuse me, against the Brazilian national team. Trini Rodman said she's never gonna be the 2019, 2020 Rodman, the player that she was, but she can still be a very effective, a very dangerous player.

It was good to see her get her first start of the season for this Washington team. In a weekend of firsts, Angel City and Louisville both won their first games of the year on Sunday. The weather, as I said, a huge factor across the U.S. and Canada this weekend. And the match against Chicago for Louisville was delayed two hours at kickoff time. And then Louisville went out and got the 1-0 win in Chicago for their first win of the

season. We talked about it being a must win for these two clubs because of the potential with the way their season has started. So now Chicago back behind the eight ball once again. For Angel City they closed out the weekend with a 3-1 home victory. A really good match for this Angel City team as they start to settle in into this new season. Alyssa Thompson showing her quality, showing that I think she can be a go-to piece for a winning team. Ryland Tiernan got the winner in this one.

Tiernan invited as a non-roster invite to pre-season, then signed a two-year contract and has now been the full-time starter at the center forward position, of course, with Sydney LaRue stepping away from soccer to start this year and not a lot of other options for this Angel City team. Tiernan a really good performance alongside Thompson up front.

Emsley with the assist on the winner. More strength in central midfield with Katie Zellem getting the start alongside Alana Kennedy. But Kennedy Fuller continues to be the story for this Angel City team. Just 18 years old running the show from the number 10 position. Correction on myself by the way it was a 2-1 win. Kristen Press came off the bench scored a goal late on it was eventually called off wasn't really clear on broadcast then the final whistle went the game ended I thought it was 3-1 and turns out it was only 2-1 that of course all over the Seattle rain who got their lone goal from a PK

Eventually finish off by G Seattle still trying to manage through some injuries being dolo has not been available yet this year I really like what I see from the young backline Emily Mason getting to start once again Curry bog McLaren in this is a backline for the future But there's some inexperience there as well that they are trying to manage through in this early part of the season. So those two teams get their first win.

Orlando kept pace at the top of NWSL with Kansas City current. They did so with a 2-1 win over San Diego, but they did concede their first goal of the season in San Diego getting that one goal. And I think overall one of the big storylines from this weekend was the strong performance for the San Diego wave. I talked about it going into the weekend. This was their first real big test.

Could their center backs hold up against a true center forward? Of course, maybe one of the best in the world in banjo. Could they go on the road against a team that has a clear tactical identity and still play the way they want to play? Would they hold together in a tough match in which they were being tested in ways they had not in the first two games? And even though they didn't get the result I think San Diego rose to the occasion. They dominated the first half were unfortunate maybe

not to be able to take a lead into halftime. And then what's going to happen? Barbara Banda is going to get out on the break. Barbara Banda is going to have opportunities in transition to set up goals or set up free kicks, corner kicks, set pieces. That's what happened. Haley McCutcheon got the opening goal in the 50th minute. Someone to watch out for now. We saw Chimacua Akuchukwu make her debut and score within two minutes off the bench for San Diego

and then be electric in the attack for the final 30 minutes of this game. Marta eventually scoring the winner from a penalty kick. But you have to like what you saw from the San Diego team. They played through Orlando's pressure in the first half. They were able to get Cascarino into some dangerous spots, not as often as they'd like, but they were able to show what they could do. I thought it was a really good game once again from Corley.

Maria Sanchez running the show from the 10 position, continuing to look really comfortable in that spot. And I thought it was a really good performance from McNabb and Wesley. They were always connected to each other at the center back position. So when Banda did get into transition, they always knew how to shade Banda towards their teammate. And they were able to either get sliding blocks in

on shots or crosses, or be able to turn Banda back up field, send her negative and make Orlando restart the attack. It is one of the things every team in NWSL struggles with. And so I think overall a really strong weekend for this team. As I said, international stuff to cover this weekend. We'll have your NWSL recap on Wednesday. Tom will be back with me live. We will be doing your preview coverage of CONCACAF as well as US Open Cup. We will be doing your MLS weekend review. We will talk all the other big storylines

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