The sun beat down on the grass at the Phoenix Rising stadium as Sporting Kansas City coach Peter Vermes walked around his team’s post-practice stretching last week.



While many MLS teams were just beginning their preseasons, Sporting had already been working for two weeks in preparation for a CONCACAF Champions League match-up against Liga MX side Toluca on Feb. 21 and Feb. 28.



Coming off of a season in which it finished in first place in the Western Conference, Vermes felt confident about the changes his team made ahead of the 2019 season. The team added several key contributors, both through intraleague trades and external transfers, and it brought back the core of its team from 2018—though days later it would trade Ike Opara to Minnesota United for $900,000 in Targeted Allocation Money.



That move, though, should not be surprising. Vermes has long been considered one of the best at what he does in MLS—in two fields. Vermes won the...