QUOTE SHEET
REAL SALT LAKE 1-0 COLORADO RAPIDS
RIO TINTO STADIUM; APRIL 9, 2016
Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Jeff Cassar
On the goal:
“We felt we were going to be able to get at their back line but at the end of the day it was going to be what choice of pass did you make. Felt like most of the balls in the air tonight were just getting eaten up. And we knew that. We do have to give Colorado credit. Before tonight they had only been scored on twice, so they have a defensive bite about their team that’s tough. We weren’t sharp on the ball tonight, which makes scoring even tougher, but Javi’s ball was perfectly placed. It forces decision making. It was not up in the air but shoulder width, and it was a great run and a great ball and it forced them into tough decision making, so credit Joao and Javi on that play.”
On big defensive plays in the first half:
“Our team defending was ok tonight. It was pretty good, we got the shutout. In the previous games it was a little more organized. Today, it was not our best night but I thought there were some really nice individual plays that several of our players made to stop goals. Aaron Maund obviously with a great play where he headed it away, Nicky made some great saves for us. But there was that grit there. There was that unity that we were bending but we weren’t breaking and that’s something for us to build on.”
On Javier Morales and Jamison Olave not starting:
“Both of them had injuries that were holding them back from some training sessions. So I made the decision that they weren’t 90 minutes fit, and I couldn’t have players out there where they couldn’t go 90, because you never know what’s going to force the game. Both the players understood, they’ve been working really hard to get their fitness up and I don’t think we’re going to have any problem at all, especially with a nice week of training, to get ready for Vancouver. But every circumstance is different, but the players who have come in and played have done a very good job as well. At the end of the day, I’ll have to make tough decisions, but obviously they are massive parts of our team.”
On Joao Plata’s instinct and production:
“He’s doing it several different ways. He’s doing it with free kicks, he’s doing it through the run of play, he’s getting assists and passes and free kicks, so he’s kind of doing it all right now. I think he’s enjoying himself. I think he’s obviously fit and you can see that explosive part of his game back. One thin Joao wants to do is score. And obviously wants the team to do well, but he’s hungry to score goals and that’s what you want from a forward. I think he’s enjoying himself and enjoying the soccer right now.”
On the importance of Sunny and Juan Martinez trying to create when breaking down a defensive team like Colorado:
“It’s really important. Obviously Juan’s ability 1v1 and combination play is outstanding. The way Sunny reads the game and anticipates and breaks up plays is outstanding and that leads to our attack, obviously. I don’t think we were great offensively tonight. I thought we were missing passes all night long, which is not typical, but our mentality was strong, and that carried us through tonight.”
On starting the year strong and being the only unbeaten team left in MLS:
“It’s obviously important for confidence. We’re not trying to break the unbeaten streak here, we’re just trying to collect as many points as we possibly can throughout the year. Obviously it shows that we’re doing some things right. At the end of the day we should be 5-0, but we’re looking to improve all over the place. It just shows that we’re doing some things well and it shows that we can still continue to still get better and that’s important for our group going forward.”
Forward Joao Plata
On his goal:
“It was a great ball from Javi (Morales) and there was a little bit of confusion from the keeper and the center backs, but I was there and the more important thing was the win.”
On going unbeaten through five games:
“For me it’s good. I feel great. It’s why we’re training hard every day. We got three points, but we know we need to keep going and I look forward to the next game.”
On second-half adjustments:
“It was a little weird in the first half. The passes were incomplete and Jeff (Cassar) told us we need to be better. The concentration and focus was there on every single ball and we need to start training again to be ready for Saturday.”
On his run of form (4 goals and 3 assists in 5 games):
“Everybody is feeling good when I score, but the more important thing is winning games.”
Midfielder Kyle Beckerman
On remaining unbeaten:
“It’s just a good start for us. We still feel like we need to improve and get better, but we want to figure it out while we’re still picking up results and that’s what we’ve done so far.”
On the first half struggles:
“I think we weren’t as sharp as we could have been and that kind of played into their hands a little bit. We were defending a little bit more. The biggest thing is that we were able to stick with it, not give up any goals and then as we got going offensively we were able to get the goal and finish up the job.”
On the shutout:
“It’s another good thing to check off in a good start for us. But we’d like to improve. We want to keep getting better. It’s important to get three points at home, but as a team we want to get better, we want to be more dominant at home, so we’ll work on it this week and see if we can get another shutout next week.”
On Joao Plata’s start:
“It doesn’t surprise me at all. He works hard every day and he has quality in his game. Now he’s on a roll. Every time he comes to the stadium, he believes he’s going to score. That’s a great thing to have on your team. He’s flying with confidence. I think we all the belief too that if he has a chance he’s going to bury it. It’s similar to 2014 and it looks like he’s on the same type of form as then. We just want to keep it going, get some other guys in form, get scoring and keep improving.”
Colorado Rapids
Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni
On the game:
“I think we threatened their backline quite a bit in the first half. I think our attacking players did a better job in the first half trying to receive the ball behind their back four, stretching out, opening up space underneath. Second half and again you have four. You have a 1 on 1, you have four great chances and this game doesn’t give you that many opportunities. Tonight we had more opportunities than we’ve had all season, and to not come away with something in that first half was tough really. And obviously giving up a goal on a tough play like that where there’s a couple decisions that could have been made to prevent that, so it leaves a bad taste in your mouth you know. I think we did enough to win this game.”
On losing the game despite doing great defensively:
“It’s tough to lose a game when you have kind of quality opportunities that you got in this game. You have more than enough. I think that we had a shot at them, I think we had more shots on goal, 10 shots inside the 18. That’s worth 2 or 3 goals from a scoring perspective. Not so much that we defended well, I thought it’s difficult when you create as much as we did in the first half and not come away with something.”
On what he told his guys coming into the second half:
“More of the same. It’s tough when you’re on an emotional high at the end of the first half and come and sit down a little bit and just kind of regroup and so the biggest thing for me was obviously we want more of the same, and to make sure you guys get each other going early on. Threaten that back four again, and I think when we didn’t have too much of the possession, too many guys were coming back trying to find the ball and then we made the field smaller ourselves and started losing the ball, because spaces weren’t there, plus balls in bad spots. They gained momentum and got on top of the game.”
Defender Eric Miller
On the game plan:
“Yeah so I think tactically obviously beforehand we identified that if we get me and Burchy (Marc Burch) out in wide spaces especially, kind of change the point of attack we would have a lot of space and time. I think we were able to do that. We found wide spaces were pretty dangerous. Obviously in the second half we weren’t able to establish possession as well, so it was kind of tough to expand on those spaces, but yeah, tactically that was our game plan going into it. It worked really well in the first half, but obviously in the second half it didn’t go as well as we would have liked.”
On the second half going conservative or not:
“I think at half time we wanted to do the same thing as we did in the first half. I thought the first half went really well and we pressed them in a good spots. Back four we were pretty dangerous, created chances but in the second half we lost our way a little bit. We ended up getting in long periods of defending where we kind of burned our legs and didn’t have sort of the energy to go forward and that’s where it just kind of compounds as the game goes on. You sort of lose your legs, lose your breath and yeah they put us under pressure for a while. We just had trouble getting out.”
Defender Bobby Burling
On the game:
“I think the first half we had a little more chances to play and created a few good chances. I think if we would have buried one of those early, I think the second half might be a little easier, but credit to Salt Lake for making some changes and second half was definitely uh… we were under at times to stretch our bodies for 15-20 minutes there. We didn’t play good enough in the second half. They were able to nick a goal from us and at that point we were fighting for it, but good two halves. I thought we had some good chances in the first half, but not in the second.”
On not being able to get a goal in the first half:
“I think we were able to dictate the tempo and play a little bit in the first half where we got ourselves some good chances, they like to keep 3 or 4 guys high and play for the counter, so we knew that and we were hoping to get one early to kind of dictate the tempo and make the game ours. Unfortunate Luis and Gashi both had a couple of good chances and credit to them and making some plays. Unfortunately in the second half we didn’t make enough plays.”
On shutting them down in the middle:
“Yeah they have some pace up front with Plata and when you bring a guy like Morales off the bench he’s going to dictate the tempo and make some changes there. We know when he has time on the ball we have to drop off, because he will pick up passes and unfortunately with the goal, the miscommunication I think there, but end of the day he’s a good player and he changed the game when he came in.”
On moving forward this week to the next match:
“This is a three-game week. One of those long ones and take one at a time. Tonight was the first obviously of three and our main objectives was to come in and get three points and we didn’t do that. But it’s a quick turnaround and another good opponent on the road in a tough environment, so no easy games. We’ve got a home game next Saturday, but our soul focus is on Wednesday going into Kansas City.”
