Why Sporting KC hopes to ‘catch a little spark’ amid homestretch of MLS regular season

On the very last day of Major League Soccer’s 1997 regular season, Colorado beat San Jose 3-1 to put the brakes on a six-game losing streak. The victory enabled the Rapids to sneak into the MLS Cup Playoffs as the fourth and final seed from the Western Conference.

At the time, MLS consisted of just 10 teams — eight of which made the playoffs. In short, the 1997 Rapids, who’d earlier that year acquired a fiery player from New Jersey named Peter Vermes, were unlikely to make a run to the league championship game.

But make a run the Rapids most assuredly did, rattling off four straight postseason victories by beating the Kansas City Wizards and Dallas Burn in two-leg playoffs. In fact, Vermes and the Rapids made it all the way to the MLS Cup finale before losing to D.C. United.

“Sometimes you get lucky,” Vermes said Tuesday, a few days before his Sporting KC squad’s critical homestretch match against the Sounders. “You catch a little spark and you fly. And other times you go in and you’re playing really well and you get knocked out in the first round.”

The Sporting KC coach has certainly seen it both ways. But he’s hoping for that spark with five games left in the regular season, the playoffs looming on the near horizon.

Since winning the MLS Cup in 2013, Vermes’ squad has suffered four first-round defeats in the playoffs. They’ve also lost in the conference semifinals and final and missed the playoffs entirely in 2019.

Those outside the locker room might be skeptical this time around, too. Sporting KC’s in the hunt for the conference’s No. 1 seed, and will host at least one home game in the playoffs, but four straight first-round exits from 2014-17 have left their mark.

Inside the locker room, however? No worries there.

“This is why you do this,” Vermes said. “You do it for the end of the year.”

Vermes remembers joking with current New England Revolution coach Bruce Arena a few years back that life as coaches would be easier if teams just went straight from the preseason to the playoffs. The regular season can “be a grind,” Vermes admitted, but hut he lives for the high-intensity finish.

MVP candidate Daniel Salloi does, too. He expressed some of that excitement ahead of last Sunday night’s game at Vancouver, which Sporting KC lost 2-1.

“I think this is my favorite part of the season,” the winger explained, “because you actually see how the standings will end up, and which teams win their games and which don’t ... and then the playoffs start.”

For now, Sporting KC is focused on this weekend’s road trip to first-place Seattle. Saturday afternoon’s game starts at 2:30 p.m. on Bally Sports KC (Univision, TUDN in Spanish).

Both lost last weekend, so Sporting KC sits five points behind the Sounders in the West. But Seattle first plays the Rapids, who are currently a single point behind Sporting, at 8 pm. Wednesday.

A Colorado win would benefit Sporting, while a Seattle victory would further distance the Sounders from the rest of the pack — Sporting included.

Did we mention that this time of year is intense?

“We’re all trying to get as many points as we can and trying to make the playoffs,” Vermes said. “As we get toward the end of the season here, it’s going to be fast and furious.”