Vermes on Bravo, New Stadium

The Kansas City Wizards will open a soccer-specific stadium in 2011. With the signing of Omar Bravo, the club has begun adding standouts to the core of players put in place by Manager Peter Vermes for the 2010 season. Vermes arrived in Kansas City as a player in 2000, helping lead the Wizards to their first-ever MLS Cup championship. He never could have predicted the position Kansas City soccer would be in 11 years later.

“It’s surreal for me with the new stadium construction,” Vermes said. “When I was first playing here, if someone had said to me, ‘10 years from now, Man U’s going to come play Kansas City and the following year you’ll have your own soccer-specific stadium,’ I would’ve said ‘you’re crazy.’”

Bravo played at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City in 2009 during a friendly between Mexico’s two biggest rivals, Chivas Guadalajara and Club America. While the crowd exceeded 26,000 for the mid-week match, Vermes said that Kansas City’s passion for soccer will be clear to Bravo when he arrives next offseason and sees the new stadium in person for the first time.

“The stadium is going up now, and I’m seeing it,” he said, “but at the same time it’s very hard to believe sometimes. So I think for Omar, he still doesn’t know the impact that soccer has in this area and that he personally will have. I think they’re going to be welcome surprises for him.”

Bravo, a veteran of nine years in the Mexican and Spanish first divisions, will turn 31 by the time the 2011 Major League Soccer season rolls around. Vermes knows that players Bravo’s age can continue playing at a high level for quite some time with the right off-field habits and mentality. Vermes played in MLS until he was 36.

“Longevity depends on how well they’ve taken care of themselves, how focused they are from a nutritional and fitness perspective and what their passion for the game is,” he said. “You could be really good on the nutrition and fitness side, but if you don’t have the passion left, you fall off pretty quickly.”

Vermes feels that Bravo is a player that does things the right way.

“He seems to not only have the passion, but also the right approach,” he said, “and that’s why he’s been successful over so many years.”