{"id":46828,"date":"2023-05-19T16:38:21","date_gmt":"2023-05-19T20:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/?p=46828"},"modified":"2023-05-19T16:44:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-19T20:44:39","slug":"rivalry-week-preview-st-louis-sc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/05\/19\/rivalry-week-preview-st-louis-sc\/","title":{"rendered":"Rivalry Week Preview: St. Louis SC v. Sporting KC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When one looks up the words \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dictionary.com\/browse\/gullible\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">soccer coach<\/a>\u201d in the dictionary you see a picture of Peter Vermes. The jutting jaw, the gym teacher crew cut, the mouth perfectly formed to shout the words \u201cnice shot princess; drop and give me fifty\u201d. And for 14 years he\u2019s roamed the sidelines of Sporting Kansas City as their quintessential soccer coach, enduring rivalry weeks contrived and otherwise, but more importantly, winning an MLS cup and three Open Cups on his way to notching the most wins by a coach with one team. Impressive.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Rivalry Week: The Battle for Missouri<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Except this year has been brutal for Vermes and the team formerly known as the Wiz. They currently sit in 13<sup>th<\/sup> in the West, ten points behind St Louis City SC, despite having played one more match than their rivalry week partners. They\u2019re a measly point above the hapless Galaxy, and they feature a shockingly uncharacteristic -8 goal differential \u2013 a fact that must make the former defender Vermes absolutely apoplectic. They were winless in both March and April and didn\u2019t even score a goal until their fourth match of the season (Against FC Dallas. Which they lost. Oh well\u2026). <a href=\"https:\/\/kcsoccerjournal.com\/the-pressure-is-building-for-peter-vermes-sporting-kc\/04\/24\/2023\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">All of which led to chatter among people who chatted about stuff like this<\/a>, that perhaps <a href=\"https:\/\/mlsmultiplex.com\/2023\/04\/26\/trainwreck-known-sporting-kansas-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Vermes had overstayed his welcome<\/a> and it was time for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/watch\/play-65e8b2399001544\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">him to move on<\/a>. Gasp!<\/p>\n<h3>Wait, I Thought This Was Supposed to Be About Rivalry Week, Not Sporting KC<\/h3>\n<p>Patience, sunshine. And its patience is paying off for Vermes and SKC. A draw on the road on Wednesday against LAFC \u2013 no mean feat. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingkc.com\/news\/skcvmin-quotes-we-got-everything-right-today-it-was-a-great-result\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">A win against Minnesota United<\/a> and a win before that against the Seattle Sounders, again, on the road. In other words, they\u2019ve earned 70% of their points this season in the past two weeks. Players are getting fit, goals are starting to come \u2013 and the chatter about looking for a new coach quiets down for a week.<\/p>\n<h3>Do I Have to Go Somewhere Else to Find Out What\u2019s Going On With St. Louis City?<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Full-time. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/KfdGypsRDb\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/KfdGypsRDb<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stlCITYsc\/status\/1657461801326370820?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 13, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Well, one can, but frankly, we all<em> know<\/em> what problems face St. Louis City. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/mlssoccer-com-injury-report\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Klauss is still out<\/a>, which means the attack will undoubtedly struggle in the final third. They miss his ability to finish, but also (<a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/05\/12\/chicago-fire-v-st-louis-city\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">as someone brilliantly pointed out last week<\/a>), they miss his ability to create space for his teammates when opposing defenders try to neutralize him. And without him in the lineup, not only does that space not exist, but you\u2019ve also got St. Louis players trying to pick up the slack, which invariably means moving out of their natural positions, which creates gaps in the St. Louis line, which, well, doesn\u2019t end well, as two losses to Chicago in a week\u2019s time (one during the first part of Rivalry Week, the other in the Open Cup), a draw to Colorado, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2023\/05\/03\/st-louis-city-lost\/\" target=\"_self\">and a loss to Portland<\/a> make painfully clear.<\/p>\n<p>Plus John Nelson will sit thanks to the red card he picked up in Chicago last week. And while the guy could do with a break \u2013 he\u2019s been spectacularly unlucky lately, if not just out of form \u2013\u00a0that means there will be some more disruption in the defense, despite the return of Tim Parker.<\/p>\n<h3>Finally, Something About St. Louis City!<\/h3>\n<p>See! The patience paid off! And guess what? It will be with the team itself, too. They\u2019re going through a rough patch \u2013 they\u2019re missing a key player on a team that everyone knew, heading into the season, was fairly thin. Plus they\u2019re no longer a surprise to anyone \u2013 teams are preparing for them. But Klauss will come back, as will Rasmus Alm whose injury has also been a hindrance to St. Louis City, though of course not as much as Klauss\u2019s has been. And in the meantime, players are getting significant minutes on the pitch who otherwise wouldn\u2019t \u2013 and that always pays dividends down the road. One just has to be patient. like SKC was with Vermes. And for the same reason.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Rivalry Week Part Two: The Battle for Missouri: St. Louis SC v. Sporting KC<\/strong><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The game is just different here. <\/p>\n<p>\ud835\udc00\ud835\udc26\ud835\udc1e\ud835\udc2b\ud835\udc22\ud835\udc1c\ud835\udc1a&#39;\ud835\udc2c \ud835\udc05\ud835\udc22\ud835\udc2b\ud835\udc2c\ud835\udc2d \ud835\udc12\ud835\udc28\ud835\udc1c\ud835\udc1c\ud835\udc1e\ud835\udc2b \ud835\udc02\ud835\udc08\ud835\udc13\ud835\udc18 \ud83d\ude24<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/AllForCITY?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#AllForCITY<\/a> x <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RivalryWeek?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#RivalryWeek<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wNtWiAJXFT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/wNtWiAJXFT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; St Louis CITY SC (@stlCITYsc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/stlCITYsc\/status\/1659560018444795905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 19, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Oh and one more thing. For what it\u2019s worth, Kansas City is not St. Louis\u2019s real rival. And neither is Chicago. Not because St. Louis City SC is an expansion team and because rivalries develop over years and not just out of the brains of marketing people \u2013 although there\u2019s that of course. No, there\u2019s another city that is truly St. Louis\u2019s rival \u2013 <em>the whole city\u2019s rival<\/em>, every St. Louis sports team\u2019s real rival, a city that St. Louis has literally decades of pain and anger about, and all justifiably so.<\/p>\n<p>What city is that? Oh my, look at the clock. Gotta go. Next time, perhaps. Until then, practice a little patience and enjoy rivalry week.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Photo Credit: Jamie Sabau-USA TODAY Sports on May 13, 2023, of a Kyle Hiebert Headshot.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When one looks up the words \u201csoccer coach\u201d in the dictionary you see a picture of Peter Vermes. The jutting jaw, the gym teacher crew cut, the mouth perfectly formed to shout the words \u201cnice shot princess; drop and give me fifty\u201d. And for 14 years he\u2019s roamed the sidelines of Sporting Kansas City as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":991,"featured_media":46830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[119],"tags":[5569,1251,248,233,5341],"class_list":["post-46828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mls","tag-klauss","tag-mls-rivalry-week","tag-peter-vermes","tag-sporting-kc","tag-st-louis-city-sc"],"modified_by":"Raheem Bashir, Site Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/991"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}