REAL
SALT LAKE QUOTE SHEET
CRUZ
AZUL5:4REAL SALT LAKE
WEDNESDAY,
AUGUST 25, 2010
CONCACAF
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE – GROUP A, MATCHWEEK #2
ESTADIO
AZUL – MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
REAL
SALT LAKE HEAD COACH JASON KREIS
On what Real Salt Lake
can take from tonight’s match:
“I think we have to take
a lot of positive things away from this match. We came down here and did what
we set out to do, which was not to sit back and defend the entire match. We
came out here and tried to put our best foot forward and go on the attack, and
if you can put up four goals on Cruz Azul at their place you have to say you’ve
done that.”
On MLS teams being
unable to register a win on Mexican soil:
“I think it’s beginning
to be a little bit of a mental thing. From what I’ve seen in the past few years
in our league, I think that when teams come down here often times they say,
‘We’re probably going to lose, so we won’t field our best team and if we can get
a tie we’ll be very, very happy.’
“For us, that was not
the decision. We came in wanting to win, and if we walked away with a draw we
could deal with that and if we came away with a loss, as we did, we could at
least hold our heads up and say that we came here to play our soccer and put
our best foot forward. And they beat us at it today.”
On allowing the late
goals to Cruz Azul:
“That’s gravely
disappointing, and it’s not like our team. After we went through a good end of
the season last year and won the championship, I feel that we’re a mature team
that typically doesn’t make mistakes like that. I’ll have to talk with some of
the players, as I think it came down a little to fatigue at the end of the
match.”
On the field conditions:
“I think the field
conditions, where the game is played, and all the extraneous factors are part
of the game. We did talk about the field at halftime, and I didn’t think we did
a terrific job of dealing with it. I think there were too many times where we
had chances to clear the ball out and get it out of trouble and we weren’t
quite sharp enough in doing that, and that caused the ball to stay in our half
for too long.
“The converse of that, I
thought Cruz Azul did a fantastic job of, when they had the chance, they
whipped the ball into the box hard and were the benefactors of some awkward
bounces.”
On whether Real Salt
Lake relaxed once it went up 3-1:
“I do think we got a
little too comfortable there and thought that maybe it was going to be easy.
We’ve seen it in our league before where, if we get a two-goal lead, the other
team quits. And obviously there’s no quit in Cruz Azul.”
REAL
SALT LAKE CAPTAIN/MIDFIELDER KYLE BECKERMAN
On the rainy conditions
in Mexico City:
“Steadily the rain just
came and it wouldn’t let up. Both teams had to play in the stuff. I think we
had some mental lapses and they made us pay for it. That’s all it came down to.
We made them pay for some lapses as well, but made us pay for one more than we
did.”
On RSL’s mindset after
the first half:
“At halftime it was all
positive. We felt we were in the perfect position and when we got the lead we
felt, ‘Let’s put it on them, we’re the better team tonight.’ Then we go out
after the half and we didn’t want to do anything stupid with the conditions and
they stuck to their guns a little bit more because they had to. But now we’ve
got to turn around and get our legs ready because we’ve got a big game on
Saturday [in Toronto].
On what can be gained
from the defeat:
“The next time, if we
get to play down here again, the confidence will be soaring. We played one of
the best teams in Mexico and took it to them for part of the game. We’ll take
some positives from this and use this as a learning experience.”
REAL
SALT LAKE GENERAL MANAGER GARTH LAGERWEY
On RSL's play this evening at Estadio Azul:
"I thought we were as good or better than them for the majority of that game, so I think that's enormously positive. We talked before the game about how you've got to dare or you're never going to get there. You have to dare to try to win. We came out and tried to win and we didn't do it, but I thought we put on a heck of a show. It was a really heroic effort from our guys, and if you put forth that kind of effort with that kind of level of play you're going to win some of those games. Sooner or later we're going to win in Mexico."
On moving forward after such a difficult result:
"You can't lose a game twice. You may have a hard result like tonight go against you, but you can't lose it again. The way you lose it twice is by dwelling on the result and not looking at the performance and having it sit with you as you go to Toronto. We've got a long trip in front of us, and Toronto is a very good team, so it's going to be an enormous challenge for us playing up there, where we've never won. The way to show that we've overcome this result is to be resilient and go into Toronto and try and win that game."
