Sporting Kansas City announced Monday that they agreed to separate from Peter Vermes, approaching his 15 years as the oldest chief coach in the MLS.
Vermes leaves the club after the 2-1 defeat on Saturday against FC Dallas, which continues its spell as the last team at the West Conference with only one point in six games so far this season. SKC was also eliminated from the Concacaf Champions Cup in the first round in February, losing 4-1 against Inter Miami together.
“It would be difficult to list all the people I want to thank after 20 seasons in management positions in Sporting Kansas City,” Vermes said in a statement issued by the club. “I am grateful to everyone, especially the property for giving me the opportunity to be an administrator of this club during the last two decades. I wish the club nothing more than the best in the future.”
Vermes, a former player who represented the United States in the 1990 World Cup, has spent the entire management career in Kansas City. He joined SKC for the first time in November 2006 as the Technical Director of the Club and became the chief coach in August 2009 interim. Then he introduced an unprecedented success period for the club, winning the MLS Cup in 2013 and three open Cup titles from 2012 to 2017.
Kerry Zavagnin, an assistant under vermes during the entire time as SKC coach, will serve as the interim for the team at the moment.
SKC Vermes Transformation
Vermes, and a family face as a former player, was hired as a technical director by the club in November 2006 to supervise a transformation after the team lost the playoffs during two consecutive seasons when they had not previously failed in the postseason only once in its history. Although SKC, then known as Kansas City Wizards, reached the playoffs in each of the next two seasons under the leadership of Curt Onalfo, the real impact of Vermes’ work was not felt until it succeeded in Onalfo as chief coach in August 2009.
Although SKC could not secure a position in the playoffs in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, Vermes took the team to eight consecutive appearances in postseason since 2011, the season they renamed and moved to the Mercy Park of the Mercy of Children. He won his first Trophy with SKC in 2012 with the first of his three titles in the Open Cup of the US, most MLS active coaches at the beginning of the 2025 season. He continued that with the MLS Cup in 2013, the first time the club won the prize since he was a player in Kansas City in 2000, as well as two more titles of the open cup in 2015 and 2017.
SKC lost the playoffs three times between the seasons of 2019 and 2024, with its form sliding last season. They finished 14th at the West Conference and won only eight games when things became obsolete in Kansas City and have not yet won a game so far in 2025.
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Vermes Definite Longevity
When Vermes happened to Onalfo as SKC chief coach, Adam Sandler’s star Funny people He won the United States box office, “Lovegame” at Lady Gaga’s debut studio album Fame It was the main song in the posters lists and the MLS Phenom Cavan Sullivan was born weeks. Such was the longevity of Vermes in Kansas City, which is such a decisive characteristic of his mandate as Trophy Trapy.
He has a crucial place in the history of the club after training 609 games in all competitions, more than half of the games in the 30 years of SKC history. Vermes easily has its MLS counterparts winning in terms of being the oldest chief coach of the League, its 17 seasons in the SKC band line are seven more than anyone. He occupies the third place in MLS for the games of the regular season 511 as a chief coach, and won 251 games in total as head of SKC.
Vermes occupies the 40th of all time for coaches with more years of time in the history of football, although training spells are rarely long in any sport. If the mandate of the Season of Vermes were in the NBA, it would be located only behind the Greg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs and Jerry Sloan of Utah Jazz in a number of seasons alone.
