QUOTE SHEET
REAL SALT LAKE 0-1 ORLANDO CITY SC
JUNE 30, 2017; SANDY, UTAH, RIO TINTO STADIUM
Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Mike Petke
On needing more selfishness in front of goal:
“Yes, absolutely clinical. Not only did we not convert them, some of them we completely missed. We whiffed on it. The possession we had, the danger we had … give credit to Jason’s team. It seemed like every cross that we had, more than fifty percent of them were blocked, great one-on-one defense. A lot of their crosses got through but at the end of the day the coaching staff and players weren’t nervous at all at half time. We had a lot of opportunities and we knew a lot more would come and then it just didn’t come.”
On quality wide play:
“Well it is one of the couple things I can take a positive out of is that we worked on a couple of specific things this week and one of them was changing the point of attack quickly and directly because mainly the staple with a Jason Kreis team is to trap on the sideline. Almost get completely over and I think we did that and had some very good plays with Brooks and Chris Wingert overlapping, and Plata coming in and Danny Acosta getting forward. At the end of the day one of the things we talked about at half time was guys like Plata, guys like Savarino, Luis Silva go in there with the ball and there are 3,4,5 combination passes centrally … something has to come of it. Can’t go for a 6,7,8 combination pass it either has to be a ball set through or a play wide. But like I said coming into halftime we weren’t nervous. We had most of the play and most of the opportunities but just didn’t fall to us.”
On Orlando’s goal and ball watching after it hit the crossbar:
“Yes, I have nothing more to say on that because you said it exactly, 100%. And that is one of the things we worked on this week: their delivery from wide service, specifically from the left, which happened and set pieces. When we fall asleep, you know Jason has his players of getting back and getting organized deeper than I had.”
On facing LA on Tuesday:
“I was hoping not to play Albert tonight to be honest with you because he just arrived yesterday morning. So of course he will probably be ready to go but everyone else we are going to have to wait and see how they came out of this game.”
On needs in the transfer window:
“I have kind of been quiet on certain things so I will give you a little bit more now. It is going to take a while, even Jason Kreis was telling me as we were walking in from the tunnel, the first year and a half he had this team, it is going to take time to make this my team. I am sure some people will not see the positives even the loss at the beginning. The only two games I did not see a positives in was Dallas and Houston everything else I have seen very big positives and it is going to take a while and I am okay with that, I am not shaking and panicking. The only part of me that is shaking and panicking is my competitiveness. We have 5 wins since I took over and that has nothing to do with me. Before that I feel like I have to remind people of certain things. What is going on, the team hasn’t won since August and that is all on the players, I am not taking any credit for that. So there are more positives, as far as the strikers specifically of course we are looking for, not just a striker, we are looking for 11 positions and we have got to go out and get them.”
Midfielder Kyle Beckerman
On the team’s finishing:
“We were just missing that final pass or the finish. You just need to keep at it. You have to keep trying to get the ball in good spots. It’s about us just getting better with it and making them pay when you do get a chance.”
On the result:
“This was a frustrating one. [We put in] A lot of good work. I don’t think they had much besides their goal, and we had a lot of action in their area. To not get one, it’s just frustrating. We’ll just keep at it. It’s a quick turnaround for Tuesday.”
On Will Johnson’s goal:
“I thought maybe it was already in and things like that. We have to do better in following it up. We just have to do better.”
On trying to pull one back:
“If we got one tonight, we would get a couple more. Just as the time goes on, it gets tight, and they play a little harder defense knowing that they’re up with the time getting shorter. It’d be nice to get that early one, and then see if the floodgates would open. We just have to keep at it.
On positives from the result:
“It’s tough. I guess that’s where we’re at looking at positives when you lose. It’s tough to take, but we’ll take the positives. But I’d rather play terrible and win.”
Forward Brooks Lennon
Opening thoughts:
“I think we had a lot possession tonight. We were creating chances, but we just need to find the back of the net. Just need to be more composed in front of goal and pick a corner and put it in the back of the net.”
On needing to be more selfish in front of goal:
“I think some players need to be a little bit more selfish and that’s good. That’s ok for the team, because we’re lacking goals right now, so whatever we can get goals, you got to do it.”
On the urgency going for the ball after the ball hit the cross bar just before their goal:
“Yeah I think we were ball watching. I think everyone just stopped and waited to see what would happen, and obviously he finished it, so yeah, we need to track our runners and make sure we’re on our guys.”
On proving themselves as a team in front of Jason Kreis:
“Yeah obviously Jason Kreis is a legend here at RSL. I think we needed the win here tonight. We were just focusing on that and putting up the best performance that we could, and unlucky that we couldn’t find the back of the net and get a win, so It’s a frustrating night overall, but we got a quick turnaround, on the 4th, so we have to get ready for that.”
On the sun getting in his eyes on his shot early on in the match:
“Yeah the sun was hard today and with balls in the air, but we can’t make excuses. I got to finish that. I’ll take the blame for that. I’m going to continue to work hard. I’m going to keep my head down and put this past me and go out there on Sunday and start training and getting ready for the 4th.”
Orlando City SC
Head Coach Jason Kreis
On finishing up the club’s road trip with a win:
“Obviously the most important thing tonight was the three points. To walk away from a three-game road trip with four points, we have to feel really good about that. The soccer wasn’t great. As I said, the result was more important than the soccer.”
On Jose Aja’s play:
“I thought he was excellent. Really well-played game by him. He was in the right spot to make critical defensive plays. Never got caught on the ball. He was superb.”
On getting the win against his former club:
“There’s no more added emotion or added specialness about winning here. It’s just three points that we critically needed. We’ve been in a pretty big down spell for a while, haven’t won too many games lately. Getting this one should be big for us.”
On Cyle Larin’s play:
“I thought he really worked for us. I thought he was really good on a couple of occasions when he turned and ran at their players. He was strong on the ball a lot of times. It’s not easy to do in his first game back after he was out for a few weeks, especially to do it here at altitude. We’ll get him refreshed and recharged, and hopefully he’ll have enough energy to build on that performance for Wednesday night.”
Midfielder Will Johnson
On his opening goal:
"Great ball in by Kaka and Jose [Aja] got up well after timing his jump really well and headed it on to the bar. He was unlucky not to score but the ball went down, and I think [Jonathan] Spector went for it first, a bit of a tussle and the ball was just there. I reacted quicker than my man and hit it home."
On beating his former team:
"Honestly that doesn’t matter to me. We needed this win for this group of guys, we needed this win badly. We had some leads on the road that we coughed up, we left some points on the table over this last stretch, so it was relief. The fact that is was against RSL means nothing to me."
On the overall performance:
"We knew that they were a team that was struggling offensively and that if we played a nice solid formation and shape that they wouldn’t be able to break us down and create chances, and if they did we knew that Joe would come up with a play or two and thats how it played out. The play wasn’t pretty, a lot of the games we won early in the year were not pretty, but they were together, they were passionate, there was energy, there was effort and we had gotten away from that a little bit and so the performance with the ball was not quite as good as we wanted but we made no mistakes. Our shape was nice our togetherness was present, you could see it, you could feel it. We’re relieved with the 3 points and thats what we’re playing for."
On what Salt Lake City means to him:
"It’s always nice to come back here and to see the familiar faces. The part of Salt Lake not really having an affect on me is just that there are so few people that are left from when I was here so when I come into the stadium it doesn’t feel the same way because I see faces and I don’t know the people so it just feels like another club. I don’t mean any disrespect to Salt Lake, or to this stadium, or to these fans, it’s just the nature of sports. Teams turn over and that just the reality. Guys get older, guys get traded, guys move on and franchises go their own way and thats just how it goes."
On having Cyle Larin back on the pitch:
"Its big, we probably don’t win that game without Cyle, he runs down a lot of things, he is our only true target guy, he plays a lot of solid minutes for us and he hold the ball up really really well, so we probably don’t win that game without him.”
On the scrappy ending:
"It’s a night at altitude where energy levels are low, Mouths are dry, you’re running, trying to make plays and so as things go on and fatigue sets in you get frustrated with certain things and you are not probably thinking as clearly as your should be. It is why it’s so difficult to get points here, I don’t think anybody is frustrated in that locker room now that everybody is calmed down. We will get the pieces together and get ready for Wednesday.”
Midfielder Servando Carrasco
On getting three points on the road:
"First and foremost, what we talked about today was getting back to what made us really good to begin with at the start of the season. Players were super committed today and I thought that from front to back we showed that we really wanted to get those 3 points tonight."
On RSL creating multiple chances:
"They are a very good team with possession, they’re a team that commits players forward, they keep both of their attacking players wide, they play that 4-2-3-1 so that gave us trouble. They went from one side to another fairly quickly so we talked about that at halftime and we were able to make those adjustments."
On Jose Aja’s return:
"At some point in the season we’re all going to go through ups and downs and thats why we’re a team. After those two not so sharp performances by him he bounced back and he trained hard, he’s been positive this entire time so to see him play so well tonight, we’re all so happy for him."
On what Cyle Larin added to the team:
"I think Cyle is always a release valve. He is so big and strong and I think he showed that tonight. That’s an element that he brings to our game and i think he was pretty good for not playing in 10 days or so."
On the defensive shape:
"We had a bit of a tactical change playing a 4-3-3 so the main thing for me was just to try and stay central. We knew that they were going to have a lot of the ball, we knew that they had very dangerous players so I just have to be conscious of those soft spots. Jose [Aja] and [Jonathan] Spector did a great job of telling me right shoulder and left shoulder so I think communication was key tonight."
