Sporting Kansas City 2.0, it was dubbed.
Boasted about, really.
As he adopted a transformation in personnel and playing style, coach Peter Vermes sat in front of the media two years ago and pointed toward a possession-dominant style as the club’s path to the future.
Here’s what he didn’t say that day: It might have never happened if not for one key addition earlier that winter.
Ilie Sanchez.
And here’s what else he left out: “I swear; we almost never got him,” he admits now. “You don’t understand how close we were to going with somebody else.