REAL SALT LAKE HEAD COACH JASON KREIS:
On FW Alvaro Saborio’s goal:
“He’s big-time, just big-time. I thought he had a really nice night. Everything he did with the ball was fantastic – his touches, his holding [the ball] up for our players to get forward, the run he made and to get the play finished off was great. We’re really pleased with how he played, just in time to send him back to Costa Rica.
On DF Abdoulie Mansally’s red card in the first half:
“That’s an ejection. No, I don’t have any issue with [the call]. It was a really rash tackle that was poorly timed, and it really endangered the safety of our opponent. That’s a red card for me, and I don’t have any issue with it.”
On Mansally’s attitude after the red card:
“These guys are such good character guys – they don’t hide from something like that. We came into the locker room, and the first thing he’s doing is apologizing to all his teammates. We all make mistakes and it was an honest mistake. He was just trying to make an aggressive play. Would I have liked to have him not do that? Sure, but hopefully next time we learn from it.”
On the team’s defensive performance after Mansally’s red card:
“It was massive. We got to about halftime and I thought ‘this could be a really good thing.’ We’ve been under so much pressure to try to play, to create attacking chances and score goals and be dominant over our opponents. Maybe now, it’ll give us a chance to say ‘okay, we’ll work hard and stay together, and the objective would be done.’ You try really hard – you get one point, that’s fantastic – and anything more than that is cake.”
On RSL’s renewed attack during the second half despite playing down a man:
“We recognized opportunities. A lot of people do a lot of talking about what we do with the ball, when we have the ball. We like to keep reminding ourselves that almost all of our best attacking chances come when we’re committed to defending and making the right response at the right time. Perhaps tonight we learned that; perhaps we learned that we need to work extremely hard. We’ll still get them – the attacking chances are necessary to win games.”
On DF Chris Schuler’s performance:
“I thought he was super. He was johnny-on-the-spot on a few crosses in the first half, and in the second half he was calm enough to adjust the ball back to his keeper in the [six-yard-box]. He looks like the old Chris Schuler.”
On MF Luis Gil’s performance:
“Luis is in really good form, and has been since before the Vancouver game, where he was electric. I was really disappointed not to have him for the Open Cup Final – I really think he would have made a difference. Tonight, again, he put in a ton of work defensively, and was so very close to doing really special things.”
On whether he is pleased with Saturday’s result:
“I think you’ll never see me coming here and be in good spirits after a draw at home. Usually that’s a failure, in my eyes, and there’s no other way to look at it. But, when you go down a man early, what else can be said. A draw, sometimes, is good enough, and it was definitely good enough tonight.”
REAL SALT LAKE MF NED GRABAVOY
Overall thoughts:
“It was obviously a bit crazy. We were in a difficult circumstance again. The red card comes out and you feel like things haven’t been going your way lately. But having said that, maybe that was good that that happened for this team. To be under adversity like that and tough conditions and having to battle all night and fight, maybe we need that a little bit to right the ship. Without question the guys that came on made a huge difference. Lovel Palmer and Chris Schuler were brilliant in the back, as were the other guys. I thought that we competed for the whole night.”
On the response after Tuesday:
“Tuesday night’s come and gone. It is what is. I thought that we were relaxed and ready to play tonight, but the game changed early on. We had to switch formations, take a guy off, and put another guy on. This was probably not the way that we thought it would be a response, but it’s a response nonetheless. I think that maybe that red card happened for a reason. To sit there and say, ‘Now we have to play 75 minutes. We need to get something from this match.’ For everyone to compete and battle like that the whole game long, it says a lot about the group, and it’s a positive.”
REAL SALT LAKE DF NAT BORCHERS
On the team’s defensive effort:
“I felt the defensive effort tonight was good. Everyone worked their butts off from Saborio to the midfielders to the backs. We were down a man for 75 minutes and that’s always tough. There’s always going to be situations where things break down, but I thought that we covered well for each other and worked our butts off.”
On how the teams bounced back from Tuesday:
“I think that this was a bounce back night for us. We did a good job as a group. We didn’t cower back in our own end of the field. The whole game we were able to put pressure on them and get that goal, which was huge. Unfortunately we couldn’t maintain the lead, but I think that overall we put out a really good effort.
REAL SALT LAKE FW ALVARO SABORIO
On the goal
“I just got away from the defender and got myself in a position to make a good shot. Thankfully, the ball went in the net.”
On how he had three defenders on him while scoring:
“I was focusing on the ball and got in a good position. I used my body as a shield and put the ball in the net.”
On being the only striker for most of the game:
“We know that when we are a man down we have to kick the ball high. I am the only player forward so we have to make sure that we kick the ball well and make good passes.”
REAL SALT LAKE MF LUIS GIL
Thoughts on switching positions between RSL and National team play…
“I feel pretty comfortable. You saw the Vancouver game where that was my first time I think this year, a couple times this year that I’ve played that position. I felt comfortable in it, but you know versatile I can go out wide, I can come in the middle. It’s good that I can always have that option.”
On having Morales’ position down the road…
“Yeah hopefully. Like I said, I’m versatile. You can really put me out wide anywhere where the open is, which is a good thing.”
Thoughts on coming back from playing Sunday and playing full 90 today…
“I feels good. It wasn’t too big of a surgery, so I thought I feel good.”
REAL SALT LAKE MF KYLE BECKERMAN
Thoughts on going down a man tonight:
“I thought it was a lot of hard work. It was a tough game going down that early, but it was a good, good effort and wanted to kind of get back on the right track and something to build off of.”
Thoughts on the draw being a positive thing for the team:
“Well I think at 0-0 I think you would be more happy I think, but when we went up a goal and I think we had some chances to win it, It’s a little disappointing.”
Thoughts on the team effort to get back into the game after Dallas scored:
“We kind of stayed at it, It happens during the game. It’s a hard scramble a little bit. Guys were coming on who didn’t know maybe they were going to play, so they have to get into the game. I think we just settled down eventually and tried to play when we could and just defend with our lives.”
Thoughts on balancing RSL’s final season games and national team World Cup qualifiers:
“Just got to keep on going like we all say. You just have to take it one at a time. The guys back here will be working hard and getting in the rest that they need and putting in the work. Then we will go and try and get it done for the U.S., then get back and ready to go.”
FC DALLAS
FC DALLAS HEAD COACH SCHELLAS HYNDMAN
Overall thoughts on the match:
“Well, I think for us it was disappointing being up a man for as long as we were and not scoring. Giving up a goal, I thought Saborio did a great job with the goal. I think it came off Rimando’s foot. We had three guys on it and he still found a way to get a shot off and score, so that was pretty frustrating. We didn’t create any corner kicks in the second half. We didn’t create, really enough scoring chances and I think we got into trying to score so bad. Sometimes it’s hard to score against a team that is organized and sitting back on you and playing off the counters. It was a game we wanted to get points but for Salt Lake a real gutsy performance and Nick Rimando made a couple of great saves. In the first half the header and then the shot from Jackson. Those were opportunities to go ahead.”
Changes made after Real Salt Lake went down a man:
“We didn’t make any changes until halftime. We felt that we needed a second striker. We needed two strikers we didn’t feel like at the end of the first half we were putting enough pressure in the box so we put Kenny Cooper in and I think Kenny scored the goal. So I think the half also gave Salt Lake also a chance to organize. They went out of the diamond midfield and more into a flat midfield so they could cover the flanks a little bit better. We brought Peter on to give us some direction in the midfield…not lose as many balls. We brought Je-Vaughn on and the first time he touched the ball, he took it 70 yards and put a great ball across so I think we needed to score in the first half and it didn’t happen.”
On what they need to do to get into the playoffs:
“What we should have done today. We needed three points. We don’t need ties, we need wins. We’re so disappointed, so frustrated right now because Salt Lake gave us the chance to get those three points and we didn’t capitalize on it.”
On Saborio’s goal:
“I don’t know, I think he was doing a lot of pumping and pushing and no calls were being made. I think the ball bounced right for him, it put him in a position he could face the goal. Sometimes when you have that many people around someone they kind of get in each other’s way. He was the more aggressive player in that situation and he made something out of nothing.”
On the physicality of the game:
“Yeah it was a bit physical. I think every time we touched them they called a foul. I don’t feel like that happened for us. I think sometimes a psychological thing is going on when a referee gives a team a red card he tries to somehow not favor a team. Or he tries – maybe not on purpose – but it just seems like a lot of the calls were going against us.”
On if the team has what it takes to make the playoffs:
“We’re going to do everything we can do get a win. We probably played better tonight 11 against 11. I thought we played better, I thought we created more chances. We had five corners kicks in the first half, second half we had zero. What ends up happening when it’s an open game like that, teams are attacking, there’s opportunities to get through. When we kept trying to go through eight players we couldn’t do it. But it was very difficult to do. What do we need to do? We need to do what he hoped to do tonight and get three points. For us now, we gotta get wins. If we don’t get wins, there’s no playoffs.”
FC DALLAS GK CHRIS SEITZ
Overall thoughts on the match:
“It’s one of those things where they definitely tried to stay behind the ball and they picked their times to attack us. We obviously had some problems breaking them down tonight. We had some chances to score but give them credit, they countered us well and got one of their own.
On Saborio’s goal:
“It’s one of those things where obviously Nick’s good with his feet and he picked up something in the middle of the field where we had cover. It was a one on one battle rather than a group effort. They got a flick on; it was just great work by him. He battled to get good position then he finished it well.”
Tactical changes after RSL went down a man:
“I think there’s little things that we did but at the same time we had a game and we weren’t going to sit back and let them come at us. So it just kinda magnified that a bit, but really, we’re in a desperate situation. We’re going to be pushing for three points at all times.”
On what needs to happen to get to the playoffs:
“I think you saw a little bit of it today. We gotta just continue to get better as a unit from all people, we need to work well as a team. We don’t really have any chances we need to go out there and create our own. It’s going to be a fight for the next three games.”
FC DALLAS FW KENNY COOPER
Overall thoughts on the match:’
“I think we’re all disappointed to not get two more points but I have to give RSL a lot of credit. They fought really hard with only ten men and did a good job to get a point themselves.”
On his goal:
“Je-Vaughn came on and made an immediate impact. He ran down the sideline and managed to get a great ball across and it went right up to me, I was fortunate it came to my feet and fortunately it ended up in the back of the net.”
On trying to make the playoffs:
“Well, you know, we’re all extremely hungry to get in there with only three points. We know we have to get points. I think you’re going to see a really determined squad over these next couple games and finally get some points."
