Real Salt Lake
Real Salt Lake Head Coach Jeff Cassar
On the injury sustained by MF John Stertzer:
“He needs to go get an x-ray tomorrow, but the doctor doesn’t think it’s broken. It’s right there in the shin, I think he said the tibia.”
On the performance of MF Luis Gil:
“He went 90 minutes and looked sharp all the way until the end, which is really positive. I thought that he had a lot of great ideas attacking wise but was committed on the defensive end as well. His goal was just fantastic. Both goals were great. His idea, his confidence to take that shot was great. Luis [Gil] knows how important he is to this team.”
On the physical nature of the friendly:
“All these games seem to end up this way. We were prepared. We had talked about not staying on the ball too long and making good choices. The tackle with John [Stertzer], I haven’t seen the replay. I’m not sure if it was dirty at all. A little bit unlucky with the foul that happened to Luke [Mulholland] in the first half but their coach was extremely classy. He came up to me at half time and apologized for that. He had a young team out there and they made a poor choice. Really classy on their part. I think Luke is going to be fine and I think John is going to be fine.”
On the performance of DF Justen Glad:
“I thought he was outstanding tonight. He made some really good choices of passes. He managed the game really well. He didn’t get caught out of position too many times. We’ve seen this before from Justen in all the reserve games. It seems like any time he gets an opportunity, he steps up and plays well.”
On the team morale after another injury:
“We feel good overall. I feel sad for those guys but our team morale is high. We have outstanding trainers that will help them get back onto the field as quickly as possible. We’re going to now concentrate on Seattle. That fantastic goal from Luis helps bring the morale back up.”
Real Salt Lake MF Luis Gil
Overall thoughts:
“I felt like I had a lot of space in the first half. Playing that central midfield, I was really comfortable in there – getting the ball a lot, being patient. Second half kind of opened up a little bit. We went with three forwards, three in the midfield, and we pressed them a lot. We got our chances, I got my chances as well, and everybody got chances. They got a great goal, but it was good we stuck in there and got another one back.”
On if he felt that it wasn’t his night to score after missing two close chances:
“No, I felt it coming, that’s why I kept going at it. That’s why I felt like you’ve just got to do it. The first two didn’t go in, but you just keep going and going and you see the 87th minute towards the end of the game, get the tie.”
On what was going through his mind on the goal:
“I don’t know. All I was thinking was just hit it – get some contact on it. I created some space, and when I got that space I felt like I had a lot open. You’ve just got to take chances.”
On MF John Stertzer suffering an injury:
“It’s tough, but that’s the game. Just because it’s a friendly, you don’t want to go soft. Maybe we could have prevented that but he’s a fighter, that’s what he’s out there for. It’s just unfortunate that it happened to him.”
On if the momentum will carry into Saturday’s match against Seattle:
“We just keep the momentum going. We got a good win this weekend against D.C. [United]. We’re getting momentum, so hopefully we get this on Saturday and keep it going.”
Real Salt Lake DF Justen Glad
On playing two positions tonight:
“I didn’t know [about switching positions] because of the injury and the substitution and putting [Chris] Schuler in. They’ve put me outside right before; that’s what I’ve been playing with them. It was a comfortable switch, and they gave me a good heads up during halftime, so it was alright.”
On his emotions in his first professional game with the first team:
“Best experience of my life, hands down. It was an amazing atmosphere and to experience that for the first time was something that I don’t know if it’s ever going to happen again. It was a good experience.”
On how he felt he played:
“I thought I did pretty well. [There are] a few things I could touch up on, a few missed passes, but other than that I thought it was solid.”
