Podcasts
What is the Root Cause of Sporting KC’s Failings?
We question Sporting Kansas City’s players, coaches, player acquisition, ownership and everything in between.
For the Glory KC is back (though it was a bit tough to muster any desire this week) with the 26th episode of the show.
On this week’s first episode, Sheena and I commiserate after the home loss by Sporting Kansas City against the previously bottom of the Western Conference Colorado Rapids (she insists there will be a second podcast this week, but we’ll see, this one was long and frankly I’m drained).
Credit: MLSSoccer.com
We breakdown a lot of different numbers from the game (including the passing chart to the right). But frankly, we get into all the emotional reactions (and have some reactions ourselves) to the abysmal start by Kansas City this season. We have an extensive mailbag, talking about topics such as firing Peter Vermes, firing Jake Reid, firing Brian Bliss, ownerships failings in this and more. Like I said, it’s long. Then Sheena closes out the pre-Digital Crawl portion of the show with a bit of a rant.
Here is a quick rundown of topics (and approximate start times):
- We discuss Sporting KC’s brutal loss – 2:18
- Answer your mailbag questions – 34:49
- US Open Cup news – 1:04:00
- Sheena does a bit of a rant – 1:06:00
- Digital Crawl – 1:10:00
You can find For the Glory KC wherever you get your podcasts. Just search “For the Glory KC” and be sure to subscribe! Here are some helpful links:
Spotify | Apple | Amazon | Stitcher | iHeartRadio | Google
Be sure to like and subscribe to the podcast. Five-star ratings and reviews will help others find the pod. On Spotify you can review on the mobile app by clicking the three dots. On Apple, it’s much more straight forward. If it’s not quite five-star worthy yet, feel free to let us know in the comments or on Twitter (@PlayFor90 or @ForTheGloryKC).
Also, you can find the podcast on all the social media platforms: @ForTheGloryKC on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or you can email us at ForTheGloryKC at Gmail.
The temporary intro/outro music is by Kristian Leo and is from the song “Ride it Like You Mean It.”
Transcript from Revoldiv available after about 24 hours. Click the link, then search “For the Glory KC” for a free transcription (or you can transcribe any podcast you’d like).
KC Current Lose Late to AFC Toronto in World Sevens
KC Current Win Over Tigres in Dramatic Fashion at World Sevens
2026 FIFA World Cup draw: Who is in the USA’s group? Who is coming to Kansas City?
KC Current Lose World Sevens Opener to Flamengo
Preview: Women’s College Cup in Kansas City
Sporting KC Part Ways with Interim Coach Kerry Zavagnin
KC Current Playing for $5 Million in World Sevens this Week
More on Rumored Sporting KC Coaching Candidate Raphael Wicky
2026 FIFA World Cup draw: Who is in the USA’s group? Who is coming to Kansas City?
Again, this is not a complaint about the auto-transcript typos. But Casey Sanko Journey wins today.
I always enjoy learning other people’s opinions on refs because they vary so much. Like, for years now no one has consistently irked me as much as Ted Unkel but I don’t see him mentioned that often. I do think Alan Chapman overall is consistently good, but I have noticed he seems hesitant when on VAR like you thought he may have been for this match.
And, Sheena? Your rant is warranted. There is always a way to disagree, ask questions, and provide criticism without crossing the line by attacking someone or purposefully trying to hurt them. This should all be in fun, but a lot of hard (thankless) work goes into providing spaces like podcasts and forums to partake in that fun. That work deserves respect even if things aren’t perfectly hunky dory between provider and consumer. It goes both ways. I noticed some jerky stuff on Twitter recently, and I’m sorry that’s been piling up.
And since I don’t live in KC, if you want to help me get credentials I’ll go ask Petey or whoever any questions you or your listeners want when I come to town. He’ll love me! (I miss the sarcasm font).
Not scoring goals.
I don’t disagree, but I guess I could have saved an hour+ of everyone’s lives and just said that.
(this is where I need a stupid grinning emoji)
Maybe there’s more to it than that but what do I know?
I don’t do any of the social medias, so I haven’t seen any of the nastiness you all are referring to. But it makes me sad, maybe even sick, that it’s out there. And that putting yourself in a position to try and help people enjoy something more (by writing, by hosting a podcast), and having the pride/accountability to use your own name, puts you in a position to have to make a rant like that.
Crap like this is poisoning many aspects of society, including politics. How do we get better politicians when no rational, normal person wants to expose themselves or their families to a toxic stew of anonymous hate and micromanagement?
So thanks for what you’re doing to make it more interesting to be an SKC fan even in these very depressing times. Take a break if you need it. We all do sometimes.
I’m not going to act like I know the root cause, but is there any talk about whether we think the individual attributes of players like Thommy and Agada were kind of Vermes’d out of them? Someone mentioned it earlier in the season regarding Agada, and I think there could be some merit to it.
Think about it: immediately after Thommy and Agada arrived, we played good soccer. We were lively, played good connecting balls, and most of all: we scored and won games.
After they arrived, didn’t we technically close out the season with the highest PPG if only the games after they arrived were used as the determining metric?
How do we go from that – with guys who were completely new to the team and the league – to suddenly having the worst start to the season in club history? I think there’s a good chance Vermes’ “system” is the culprit.
I think after the arrived, they were able to “be themselves”, assimilated into the team well, and naturally gelled with the rest of the roster, and therfore bump the team up to where they should be. Over the preseason though, I think Vermes need for “my [generic, blah, run hard] way is the only way” kind of neutralized the individual traits of Thommy and Agada, which has therefore trickled down to affecting the team as a whole. I think this has kind of happened with the team over the years too – play under Vermes long enough, and unless your specific traits happen to line up with exactly what his idea of what needs to be happening is, you’ll be diluted down and forced to play in a system that doesn’t adapt and doesn’t work, instead of adjusting the system to work with the players.
I’m fully on the Vermes out train. It’s time, they can’t wait until 3 years from now. I know it won’t happen though, and until then or he makes some drastic changes, I’m – for the first time since becoming a soccer addict – am questioning if I want to go to a game, on a game-by-game basis.
This could be true (coaching the talent out of them). He was asked this question at the Cauldron townhall and he actually had prepared clips to show some of the stuff they are doing that was working but isn’t now. Basically, it seemed to boil down to Thommy in particular overthinking things.
But it extended beyond him. Salloi did this in the box right before the Colorado counter goal. He gets the ball in a great spot, Agada is wide open and calling for the ball, but he takes an extra touch, then Agada’s touch is bad and it all breaks down.
Is it the yips? Lack of confidence? A bit of overthinking? Your PV idea (that I think Thad threw out on a pod)? All of the above?
I don’t know, but it’s worth adding to the pile of reasons it could all be going wrong.
Thommy is definitely thinking too much. His shot and pass selection are all discombobulated. Beyond that, they all seem to be pressing (in the effort sense, not tactically). They need a good result to turn this mess around.
I’m just going to say this: Hate on the Galaxy. But Klein standing up and taking ownership of their club’s failures today counts more to me than anything SKC has done in the past year.
Someone in the Sporting hierarchy should be standing up and saying they will make themselves accountable if the club fails again.
I’ll give Klein just the tinniest amount of credit.
But he basically said, if the team doesn’t finish 9th, he’ll resign. It’s a low bar. Not one I’m sure PV would set for himself, but LA have been FAR worse in recent years. Missed four out of six years in even making the low bar that is the playoffs.
Plus, they cheated and he’s currently suspended from his job and the team can’t make any international signings in the secondary window because of it.
Whatever you think of PV, I don’t think he would cheat. Maybe that’s a flaw, b/c it seems lots of teams are cheating and just not getting caught (or MLS is bending the rules for them).
I don’t think following the rules (however arcane) is a flaw. I would say Vermes has used every bit of acquired capology in the past to gain an advantage. But that isn’t the same as clubs like LAG or Inter Miami, I agree.
This doesn’t have much to do with the game, but I’m glad you brought up the terrible trade for Kelyn Rowe. I think the guys on Shades of Blue did as well. That is a move that I remember every year because of how bad Rowe was for us and how much it has hurt us to not have Rubio or be scored on by him. If we still had Rubio, we would probably still be a bad team, he’s not that good of a player. My issue is with the reasoning behind PV trading him: he just really wanted Rowe because he thought he was good at one point in time. I feel like PV has a bad habit of getting hooked on a player and wanting them so bad that he’ll wait years to get them regardless of their current play. Rowe was not playing good by any measures before 2019 when we acquired him, yet PV still made the move to pick him up and trade away our only proven goal scorer. And who did he bring in to fill that gap? Khiry freakin Shelton. I mean, come on, that is so bad! And that’s not the only time he’s made super questionable trades but that has to be one of the worst in my opinion. I complain about it every year so it felt validating to hear your frustration on it too.
Bottom line: PV as a coach, I still have some faith. PV as a sporting director, I’ve been skeptical for years. Like everyone else is saying, he’s still trying to play by MLS 2.0 rules and we’ve been past that era for years at this point.
Having Rubio last year would have been pretty cool, IMO