In the team's refocusing on fundamentals, don't think that the lack of scoring that continues to plague the Kansas City Wizards has been forgotten.
The past few weeks, last Saturday's road game against San Jose most recently, have been encouraging to technical director and interim head coach Peter Vermes from an overall standpoint, but on Thursday he reiterated that the Wizards, which have scored one goal in the past seven games in all competitions, must find ways to finish when attacking.
"When you go into a game and create two breakaways ... and we don't score, we have to take that into consideration," Vermes said. "We have to say 'Let's be realistic. Let's not just be overly positive about everything.'
"I'm not trying to be that. The staff isn't trying to be that. Everybody knows at the end, we have to score goals. We need to have better performances than we had last week. No matter how much I tell [the media] how much we've improved on many different concepts, we still lost."
Vermes then said a consistent challenge he has put up to the team is improving from one game to the next -- and scoring.
"I think the guys are up to the challenge from that perspective," Vermes said. "It's going to come down to us putting the ball in the back of the net."
Thursday morning's training, Vermes said, began with a serious tone that carried throughout the session. The coach took notice.
"I think the guys are realizing we mean business every day that we come out," Vermes said. "We're going to get better from game to game, day to day. We did an edit after the Chicago game -- nobody wants to do that after you lose. We did another one after the San Jose game. Nobody wants to do that after you lose, again.
"There are things we do well, and things that we do not so well. And, we have to improve on both sides of that. If everybody is accountable for that, then we're going to get better as a group."
Attitude, of course, isn't enough to put the ball in the back of the net, and this weekend's opponent, Real Salt Lake, won't be much help either if they play to form as the club has shown possession to be a major strength and is coming off an explosive 4-0 win against Chivas USA on Wednesday.
With the win, RSL has moved itself into a place in the MLS Cup Playoffs for the moment and might think of Saturday's game at CommunityAmerica Ballpark as an easy but extremely important chance for three points.
There's also a chance that RSL overlooks the Wizards as it prepares for a mini-vacation before taking on the Chicago Fire on Sept. 12. Vermes said he wouldn't blame RSL if they did overlook his team a little bit, but they should be careful if that's the case.
"I would think so. I would think for sure," Vermes said when asked of the possibility. "Teams are coming in here, and [Kansas City] is a team that hasn't scored, hasn't gotten points lately, you go on and on and on, has a coaching change, just keep adding on. And, they think 'Hey, if we score first, they're done. They aren't going to respond.'
"At this point, if I'm on the other side, you're contemplating the same thing. But, on our side, we have to prepare. We have to play for 90 minutes, and if there's four extra minutes, we're playing for 94 minutes like last week."
The Wizards stopped a smaller wins drought earlier this season with a 2-0 victory against RSL in Utah -- the first loss handed out at Rio Tinto Stadium. Vermes said he attended that game in person, and he believes there were several good lessons the team could take and apply to Saturday at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
"I was at that game live, so I got to see the whole field when we were defending and we were attacking," Vermes said. "What they [Real Salt Lake] do is, they get numbers around the ball very quickly with pressure, and when they win it, they play very direct.
"Their defenders are four guys that like to have a lot of the game in front of them. When you start playing balls past them or out in the flanks, there's a lot of important decision making that has to be taken into perspective, and I think that's when they have a little bit more difficulty."
Kansas City enters the game sixth in the Eastern Conference with a 5-9-6 record (21 points). With 30 points, Real Salt Lake (8-9-6) find themselves in a tie for fifth with Colorado in the Western Conference.
Curtis Kitchen is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
