‘Burn the place down’: How Sporting KC flipped its season with beers and a campfire

The equipment room sits on the back end of Sporting Kansas City’s locker room, and on a late October evening, it supplies the setting for a postgame celebration. OK, not just any postgame celebration — one that acknowledges that the best in-season turnaround in franchise history will include a trip to the playoffs.

If we’re being honest, the space is a bit crammed for the full roster, but no one wants to skip this one. Most of the players have a shot glass in their hand, waiting for captain Johnny Russell to finish a speech before downing what’s inside it.

“We haven’t done anything yet,” Russell says, which sparks a reaction from the group, but not nearly the volume of the one that will follow.

“Let’s making a (bleeping) run for it,” he says.

The glasses go in the air, and the shots of liquor down the hatch. Russell, one of the first to finish, adds one final sentence into what’s become a noisy room.

“Thanks to Mike for the ranch — because that’s what changed this season, as well.”

Much of this scene was captured by Sporting’s internal video operations, and if you happened upon it as a fan, you’re probably wondering the same thing I was.

Huh?

The ranch?

And changed this season?

It’s been the unmentionable around these parts, an agreement between those in the locker room as though the ranch is code for a bachelor trip to Las Vegas. It was a “retreat,” is about all they’ve offered, after one of the very worst starts to a season in MLS history.

But the agreement? All of the details of the so-called retreat would stay there.

Until now.

A campfire, a few drinks and much more.

“OK,” Russell said this week, a smile as he plopped down on a couch inside Sporting’s training center.

“What do you want to know?”

‘Hit the release valve’

Ten games into the Sporting KC season — 10 games into a still winless season — owner Mike Illig began calling a few of the team’s veteran players: Russell, Tim Melia, Roger Espinoza and Graham Zusi. Truth be told, Illig initially sought feedback on the head coach, and the response there was universal.

“All said it was absolutely not the coaching,” Illig recalled in an interview this week.

But there emerged another consistent string from those calls. Nobody was having much fun. Which, well, how could they?

See, the Sporting KC team playing in the Western Conference semifinals Sunday in Houston endured one of the worst starts to a season the league has seen.

Ever.

The end of this story is to be determined. But that’s the start of this story.

I’m going to focus mostly on where it turned — on the pivot from worst to best. But I do want to take a step back and recognize this: The thread between the winless streak and what followed provides one of the best examples of the role of mental performance in sports. Proof that confidence matters as much as the tactics.

Because what became clear to just about everyone involved is that through 10 games, Sporting had none of it.

What was less clear: How the hell to fix it.

“It can feel like you’re never going to win a game again,” defender Andreu Fontas said.

Which is what Russell meant when he uttered what’s become a signature phrase — that he genuinely didn’t know how to fix it. The worst thing he’s gone through as a player, he said.

“When you’re going through that, guys go into their shell a little bit,” Russell said. “It’s a lot harder to be social when you’re going through something like that.”

“You don’t take time to go to dinner with a teammate — or even your family and kids,” Fontas said. “You’re angry. You cannot be happy when you’re not doing right in your job.”

Which is precisely the kind of feedback Illig received from the series of phone calls.

“They needed to hit the release valve,” Illig said. “Hard.”

So one afternoon, he called coach Peter Vermes and told him that he was canceling a weekday practice.

“The players,” Illig said, “are going to the ranch.”

Maple Ranch has a bit of a reputation in this circle. An hour south of Kansas City, the Illig family often uses the home-away-from-home for informal conventions of sorts.

The outdoor surroundings are perhaps eclipsed only by what’s inside. The former covers 11,000 acres and a lake with the activities fitting of the environment; and the latter includes a near-exact replica of The Wheel in Lawrence and provides accommodations for more than 100 guests.

This trip would need about 30.

Players only.

Before being transported there, Illig instructed them to meet with the team’s mental performance coach, Becky Wiseman, who provided some objectives for the overnight stay.

Afterward, players were told to go home, pack an overnight bag and meet back at Illig’s office in the afternoon to catch a bus to the ranch.

Oh, and one more instruction, straight from the owner:

Burn the place down.

A night at the campfire

Russell spoke first, and as much as you might expect him to have provided some motivation or constructive criticism, he primarily outlined an instructional guide for how the night should unfold.

The fire crackled in front of him, with teammates surrounding the flames in a pit. They had spent much of the day inside before transporting coolers of adult beverages as the gathering moved outdoors.

As for the instructions, they were quite simple. No one should take offense to anything that was about to be said. No one should take anything personally, either. And goalkeeper Kendall McIntosh insisted on another: Everyone would not only get a chance to speak but must say something.

Russell loved the last idea, and he added, “No voice matters any more than anyone else’s here.”

The group had arrived to Maple Ranch in the afternoon, and the earlier plans included more of a party feel. Or at least a social gathering. That was by design. The point was to have fun again — to enjoy the company of teammates again.

For weeks, Vermes had coached confidence “as much as I ever have,” a recognition of his team’s mental state but also a recognition that the lousy start wasn’t about the talent. “You don’t want guys dreading coming into work every day,” Vermes said.

He and Russell had brainstormed some solutions, such as Russell inviting the team over for dinner.

This went a little bigger.

The players spent the early evening at the ranch’s bar, The Wheel replica, and put sports on the TV and blared music over the speakers. Danced to Eminem songs, as a couple recalled. Took advantage of an open bar, as they nearly all recalled.

But then? They mixed in the business part of the trip.

Sporting KC has been the best team in the Western Conference since May 1. The start of the season was so bad that even that was only enough to sneak them into the playoffs of the final day. They beat San Jose in penalty kicks in the opening round. They swept budding rival St. Louis SC, the No. 1 seed, in the next. The march continues Sunday in Houston.

There is some subjectivity to the origin of streaks in sports, particularly those that take such a sudden turn, but this trip is unequivocally what Sporting players say sparked theirs.

“Just being there together, having fun and talking to each other throughout the day, the work was done because we felt like a team,” Fontas said. “But at the end of the night, the talking, that was huge. It was everything.”

They went around the circle, one by one offering the proverbial floor to each. Some spoke for awhile. Some for only a minute or two.

Some were optimistic — don’t give up, they said. Some were quite critical, even of teammates, and Russell insisted on absorbing that piece.

But they all spoke. Every last one.

“There were a lot of things said that needed to be said and that we all needed to hear,” Russell said. “Everyone sees different things.

“But at the same time, that’s when you realized: We all had the same mentality. We were all there to get better. The fire pit is where everything started.”

“I think that’s why it was huge — because it made you realize we were all in the same feelings,” Fontas said. “We were all struggling. Nobody wants to be part of one of the worst teams in MLS history. But you could see it wasn’t just you. It was this person sitting next to you. We were all struggling together.”

The airing of grievances, if you will, commenced at 11 p.m.

They remained at the fire pit — all of them — until 3 or 4 a.m., Russell said. The conversation never paused. They never broke from the guidelines, either.

Not even the one from the owner.

By morning, the place was in need of some, well, repairs. The aftermath looked like a party scene from a movie. Leftover beverages strewn about. Taxidermy had been broken. Plenty of other messes to clean up.

“A small price for me to pay,” Illig said.

You know what happened next: Sporting flipped its season.

That very next match, a trip to Seattle, had the feeling of a Super Bowl. On the first weekend in May, Sporting won in one of the hardest stadiums for a visitor.

They had to win.

A group text among Sporting executives, including Illig, blew up during the game. “I’ve never wanted to win a regular-season game more,” he said.

A feeling of relief as much as excitement.

“I think the next day, when we left the ranch, you could already tell something was different. We were all in it together,” Russell said. “But that game in Seattle, how together we were, just watch it. You can see it.”

The same veterans Illig had phoned sent him a text on the plane ride home:

How about making the ranch a regular trip?

The win in Seattle came with another change, even beyond the result, and that too would be long-lasting. After future goals, the players huddled in a circle and introduced a new celebration, which, like those conversations around the campfire, involved everyone.

Still today, there’s one detail within that celebration they would like to keep internal. There are rumors about why they all place their arms around one another’s shoulders and shake their hips back and forth. I’ve heard one of them, and began to ask Russell about it.

“The fire pit dance?” he asked.

I nodded. I’ve heard...

“Yeah,” he interrupted. “It’s not time for that part of the story yet.”