In one of his first meetings with Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes, club co-owner Neal Patterson acknowledged knowing very little about what it took to win soccer matches. And he didn’t particularly care how it was done either, he explained to Vermes, who was then serving as the team’s technical director.
But he issued one requirement: The public message of the team’s plans and the execution of those plans must fall in sync. In other words, if the team professed to be an attacking-minded team, it better not be losing matches 1-0.
“It’s such a simple statement, but it really (impacted) me,” Vermes said.