Thoughts on the match…
We knew this was a very important game and a difficult one, especially
given the amount of games that we played. But like I said before throughout the
season, this is why you have a team. It’s not 10 guys, you got to count on the
whole team to step in and play a role. We’ve been talking to guys about this
tournament and what it means and how important it is and what it means to this
organization; we’re the MLS team with the most Open Cup victories with four and
we want to keep that going. That was one of the goals at the beginning of the
season and the goal is to win the Open Cup and we’re going to put everything in
to do that.
We knew it was going to be a difficult match playing on turf
and the short turnaround, we had to change a lot of the guys in the lineup and
we didn’t have a particularly good start. I thought we went into the game not
having a good start and I was a little bit worried about that. The first 10 -15
minutes of the game the guys were not in the game, but then we started playing
better. I was very happy with the performance of Diego, not only to play well
and hold the ball underneath and make a lot of plays, but also to get a goal, I
thought it was important for his confidence. Then we locked things down, again
we didn’t give up a goal we had more chances late in the game. When Patrick and
Dominic came in with their pace I thought we were able to open the game up and
we were able to create more opportunities and we didn’t give up a goal and we
won an important game on the road.
A lot of guys stepped up and contributed so it was an
important victory and on top of it we had a lot of fans that came all the way
from Chicago to see us, so that was fantastic.
Injury to Dasan Robinson…
Yeah, he got a knee to his thigh and it tightened up on him.
That was unfortunate because we were hoping for him to go 90 and we were forced
to use a sub on that with Jalil. But Jalil came in and it’s a position that
he’s played in college and he did a very good job.
Changes in the second half…
The guys settled in for sure and I think we were better with
the ball. The mentality going into it, I told them that we have to be ready to
compete from the beginning on both sides. These are games we’re the only ones
that are going to make it hard on ourselves because our quality’s better and we
have better players. It’s just a matter of going from the start with the right
attitude, being better with the ball, winning every 50-50 ball and I thought we
went in a little bit casual at times not knowing that this was a big game for
them and they were going to put everything into it and we needed to match that
intensity.
Obviously when it came down to from a technical standpoint
our quality was better and we were going to string passes together, make better
decisions and create more. The start wasn’t good but obviously the second half
we were better with the ball, we found more space, we were able to move the
ball better but still at times we make it hard on ourselves. That’s the end
result, we got to get better and keep working because there are many situations
when I just think we make it hard on ourselves.
On the debut of Open Tryout winner Pari Pantazopoulos…
I liked it. Everyone on the field had a good performance. As
with anything, Pari went on the field and gave us exactly what we needed. He’s
a young player, I think he gave a lot, he worked hard, he got up and down the
field and for sure, there’s things that he needs to get better at, just like
any other player, but I was happy with the effort and his performance for sure.
Handling a short turnaround and trip to take on Chivas USA in Los
Angeles on Saturday…
It’s a lot of games. Obviously I would’ve liked to have used
Patrick 25-30 minutes today but sometimes you don’t know how the game is going
to be. I think the good thing is Dominic had a limited amount of minutes maybe
20 or so, Patrick a little bit more so we got to make sure that it’s more of
maintenance for those guys with the travel and everything. We have to rest a
lot of guys now, we have to see how Logan is feeling, hopefully he’ll be ready
for Saturday – it’ll give us a big boost obviously in the middle because he’s
an important player for our team.
