Vermes Interview on Opara, Preseason, Rumored Signings, Fontas, Dos Santos, Split Squads

After the triple scrimmage day on Wednesday, The Blue Testament caught up with Sporting Kansas City head coach and technical director Peter Vermes. He got a chance to weigh in on a multitude of topics, including:

• His thoughts on preseason so far
• The plan going forward which included the team returning to KC before they head back to the desert to play two 75-minute games against Phoenix Rising FC on February 7th. Peter also said the club was playing two MLS teams on February 13th, despite the schedule saying they were playing the Houston Dynamo and FC Tucson. I’ve since confirmed from a source inside the team that Peter misspoke and the above games are correct
• Peter’s thoughts on how Andreu Fontas and Botond Borath will replace the athleticism of Ike Opara
• Peter confirms that rumored acquisition, striker William Opoku Mensah is a Swope Park Rangers target, not a first team target
• Vermes talks about personally congratulating new Vancouver Whitecaps coach Marc Dos Santos
• And finally on splitting the squad. We’ve had a pretty good discussion going in our aptly named, Community Discussion story about splitting the squads. The way Peter answers the question I’m not sure we still know the exact plan of splitting the squad going forward, though it seems very likely that he is actually going to rotate the squad much more with a condensed season, more midweek games, the same number of MLS games and US Open Cup games, all packed into less months. SKC just had their shortest offseason ever and they’ll forever (barring further schedule changes) get more time to recover starting this offseason, even if they win it all. You should go join that discussion.

Watch the full interview below. And be sure to like and subscribe to our YouTube page to see stuff before we get the corresponding story up. Also, be sure to check out both recaps of Wednesday’s games.