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Cerebral defending One last test for Wizards' league-best defense
Updated: Sunday October 15, 2000 7:53 AM
By Jeff Green, CNNSI.com WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Defender Peter Vermes summed up the Kansas City Wizards' success in a single word: "Attitude." "All season," the MLS defender of the year said on Saturday, "our motto before the game is that we are going to come into this locker room either even or ahead at halftime. "The one thing that everybody committed themselves to was that we weren't going to give up early goals." The same motto will be heard in the Wizards locker room on Sunday, before they take the field against Chicago Fire in MLS Cup 2000 (1:30 p.m. EDT; ABC). That this defense would emerge as the league's best, giving up just 0.91 goals per game, might have surprised some people going into the season, especially after the Wizards' disastrous 1999 season. Anchored by a goalkeeper coming off a serious knee injury, the three-man backline featured a 33-year-old converted forward picked up in an offseason trade, a 20-year-old rookie and a second-year MLS player who started just eight games last year. In the nets is MLS MVP Tony Meola. The sweeper is Vermes, who played as a forward on the U.S. World Cup team 10 years ago with Meola. The backs are Nick Garcia, out of Indiana University, and Brandon Prideaux, who played with the University of Washington and second-division Seattle Sounders before coming to K.C.
Soccer's Vince LombardiCredit for defensive success, Vermes said, starts with the team's mentality, and that is instilled by coach Bob Gansler. "I look at him as being the Vince Lombardi of soccer," Vermes said. "His knowledge of the game has been unbelievable for our preparation for each game that we've played. His tactical awareness, breaking film down. "Alongside of all that, he's just a class person. "When you put those two things together," Vermes said, "you have a little extra push out on the field." Gansler managed to achieve that not just with the starters, but with the reserves as well. "I think his biggest asset this year has been the way he's managed the team," Vermes said. "It's hard for the guys on the bench to come in and complain when a team has been as successful as we have." Winning does indeed change everything, and the Wizards are proof of that as they trade credit the way losing teams shift blame. "It is about players," Gansler said. "And they have to buy into playing with each other. "Soccer is a game where it's not formations and it's not plays, it's about realizing the plusses and minuses of the folks around you, and their willingness to be humble." Displaying that humility, that willingness to commit to defense, in the midfield for Kansas City are Kerry Zavagnin and Matt McKeon. "Kerry is definitely the unsung hero," said Garcia. "I think Kerry is one of our MVPs." Team defense, Vermes said, starts with the forwards. "When we play a good defensive game, it's because the two guys up front start it off," he said, making things easier for the midfielders and defenders.
Cerebral defendingGansler said he was not surprised at the success of Prideaux and Garcia, who started 31 and 32 games of a 32-game schedule this year, respectively. "Brandon did a little more than I thought he would," Gansler said. "He came on even beyond my expectations. Nicky, I knew what I was getting." "What makes both of those guys good, No. 1, defensively, their fundamentals are extremely sound. No. 2, they relish playing defense," he said. "And they play it in what I call a cerebral fashion. Their version of defending is not cold-cocking anybody, it's not kicking the ball away, it's not kicking the ball out of bounds. It's not committing fouls. That's McKeon's job. "[McKeon] is pretty much our enforcer," Garcia said. The focus for Garcia and Prideaux, according to Gansler, "is winning the ball." In 32 games, Garcia amassed only 33 fouls. He also took only one shot, proving his stay-at-home defensive role. Prideaux picked up just 38 fouls. On the other hand, McKeon was fourth in the league with 75 fouls. Two spots ahead of him with 79 fouls is K.C. winger Chris Henderson, who also led the team in scoring with nine goals and nine assists. Garcia lost out to Fire defender Carlos Bocanegra for MLS rookie of the year. "I'd be disappointed if I wasn't here," Garcia said of MLS Cup. "I set my goal as being here and winning a championship. I didn't set a goal of winning rookie of the year." For Vermes, who like his father before him played professionally in Hungary, the MLS defender of the year honor was made sweeter by his conversion from forward to defender, where he is better able to utilize his skills as an organizer. Vermes discounted the labeling of K.C. as a defensive team. "We scored just as many goals in the regular season as L.A. did, and they were considered a pretty attacking team," he said of the teams' 47 tallies, tied for seventh in the league. "The difference, I think, is that when we do score a goal, we lock things up in the back. "A lot of teams, after they score, they get complacent."
No. 1 priorityBall possession is crucial to the Wizards' game plan. "The main thing is that we play our game, and we need to have the ball. That's been our No. 1 priority all year long," Gansler said. "It's what I thought last year was totally missing." Having worked his way into MLS from the second-division Milwaukee Rampage, Gansler took over last year for Ron Newman as the team skidded to the second-worst record in MLS. How did he set out to correct the team's lack of possession? "You get better players," he said, pointing out that each of the team's six new starters made a contribution to that objective. Gansler said his team remained consistent because it was not overwhelmed by success, which came early in the season, or dashed when things got a little rocky. "For the whole year, we've pretty much believed in the fact that you're only as good as your next game." Now there's only one left to prove it, and it's against the best offense in MLS.
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