QUOTE SHEET
REAL SALT LAKE 0-0 SPORTING KC
RIO TINTO STADIUM; OCTOBER 16, 2016
Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Jeff Cassar
On the team’s execution:
"Frustrated with the final product, but I thought we put ourselves in a much more aggressive position tonight. We weren't as passive, and that was great, but we’ve got to find a way. It doesn't have to be beautiful, it's just find a way and I thought we created enough chances tonight to do that, but we'll keep working."
On creating chances outside the area:
"I mean we talk a lot in our locker room and in not just in the attack, but just everywhere on the field is the choices that we make. And listen I love it when people pull the trigger, it loosens up the defense so there is something else available, but first we have to hit the net now and we’ve got to get something out of the good play that leads up to those plays, and we’ve got to make the goalkeeper make saves and at the end Timmy (Melia) made some fantastic saves, Nicky (Rimando) made some fantastic saves. We just have to keep putting ourselves in that position and I have full confidence in these guys and I know what they are capable of, and we just have to have that killer mentality."
On Rimando’s 86th minute save:
"I mean just watching real quickly on the replay I thought his footwork and his position was great and that's extremely key in goalkeeping, is getting yourself in the right position to make multiple saves, and I thought Nick did a great job of that tonight. I thought he was in great shape, great angles and came up very big for us when we needed it."
On Justen Glad’s play:
"Well, I was frustrated on that one play. Time of the game, and recognizing what is going on. Those are things that can't happen. It has to be extremely smart and safe in the back at those moments. I understand what he was trying to do and I love that he wants to do those things, but we also have to recognize, if you are going to be they have to come off and we can't give away a great opportunity like that in the last minutes of the game.”
On Schuler’s play:
"I thought he was fantastic we wanted him to come in and have a presence, and it's no easy task going against Dwyer his work rate and his body position is tough to deal with and I thought he did an excellent job of that. He was mentally strong, physically strong, and I thought his play out of the back was well."
On the team’s killer instinct:
"Let's be honest, you can't go three, four games without scoring and exude confidence. It's a tricky thing so you work on it a lot in practice. You try to get them finding the back of the net, finding rhythm. And listen, we've created a ton more chances, guys were getting in there, Joao was getting in fantastic positions, Juan a couple times, Yura a few times. The more we can get them in the positions the more we will be successful and them feeling good about themselves. But it's tough obviously they aren't going to feel good about this game so the confidence is going to be low. So that is part of our job as coaches is to now this week put them in positions to make them feel that they can score in anytime they touch the ball."
On Movsisyan’’s substitution:
"He was expected to go longer, I believe right around the 35th or 38th minute he got a good kick on the heel and we just had him push through ten minutes and then Choco (Olmes Garcia) coming in, and I thought Choco was bright and lively. We wanted a final product, but he came in and worked extremely hard and did cause some problems for Kansas City."
Midfielder Luke Mulholland
On a common theme for the team’s struggles:
“It is just a tough one. It happens every season you go through patches without being able to score. Right now we’re working very hard to get the ball in good positions and it’s coming down to that lack of concentration and finesse just to get that ball over the line. It’s not the best thing in the world. I think it’s been six games and we’ve scored one goal. Obviously today negatives we that we didn’t score and we didn’t book ourselves a spot in the playoffs. Positives we can take out is that we’re still in the fourth spot and we got a clean sheet. There’s two ways to look at it and I think we need to concentrate on the positives and just tidy up areas we can control, especially with the goal-scoring. So next week we go up to Seattle and we know a tie gets us in but a win would guarantee a home seed so we know exactly what we’ve got to do.”
On not winning the last four at home:
“Goals change games. So you never know at this point we may be better off getting into the playoffs and playing on the road, fight for our lives out there and try to get through to the next round. Then we’ll come back to Salt Lake for the western semi-finals. I don’t know. It definitely isn’t something that’s playing on our minds too much. I think we just need that short-term memory loss right now and move and try to get better each game and the momentum in playoff football is always different. Once we book ourselves a spot in the playoffs we’ve got it all to play for and hopefully we’ll just get the goals even if we get it down to a penalty shootout. We’re not out of it yet.”
On the nervousness of not booking a playoff spot yet:
“I think at this point it’s just one of those if we don’t make the playoffs then we say to ourselves we weren’t good enough because we didn’t win in any of our last seven games of the year. So I think if that’s the case then you hold your hands up. But like you say it’s all about getting into those playoffs and doing what we can. All eleven plus the subs are going to have to do everything we can to get into next week. We’re in a better position than last year and that’s all you can just build from, build from last season. You never know with the playoffs, you saw it with Portland last year, we’re definitely not expecting the same thing to happen for us if we just get in there. At this point I still feel confident we can still go up to Seattle and get a result. It’s a tough place to get a win but we know a tie gets us in. We’ll see how that goes.”
On checking other scores during halftime:
“After the game you’re asking how the other teams do. I think next week you solely concentrate on our game and I think it’s up to the coaches to keep one eye on the other results whether a tie or a win is going to be best for us. We’ll leave that up to them and listen to the instructions and we’ll just concentrate on doing our thing on the field.”
On Nick Rimando:
“Both keepers were busy today. Nick was busy; their keeper was busy so I think they were probably the man of the match for both teams. It is always good knowing that we have Nick Rimando back there to give us a few lives. He’s been solid all year. The other team just can’t knock on the door too many times or they’ll answer and score a goal so I think we need to step up in the goal scoring department and get ourselves a couple of goals next week.”
Midfielder Kyle Beckerman
On the team’s effort:
“I’m not sure. We’ll just have to get back to practice this week and work hard and see if we can get sharper for next week.”
Thoughts on the standings during the match:
“After the game we checked. Not the best results so we were hoping to just take care of our own business and be in the playoffs and we weren’t able to do it.”
On the team’s scoring woes:
“We’re just not sharp in front of goal right now. We’re practicing hard and we’re doing all the things you’d do after you don’t score in a game and we’ll do it again this week and hopefully it’ll turn out better for us next week.”
On Dallas beating Seattle:
“It helped. But you’d like to just do it and take care of your own business, especially with a home game. I guess that’s a positive that they lost and we’ll get back to work and give everything we have next week.”
On the post-game locker room attitude:
“I think we’re all frustrated and we need to get some win’s because it’s been a while. The guys have been working hard in practice and we’re just not finding a way to put it in the back of the net. We created the chances today and if we continue to create the chances hopefully we’ll get a goal and then maybe a bunch will come after that, we’ll look for that.”
On earning a clean sheet:
“I thought Schuler was a monster back there he was unbelievable. Justen did solid as well and Nick of course and that has to continue. I think getting shutouts at the end of the season is a good thing and we just need to find a way to score a goal and get on the winning side of a game. We’ll work hard this week and see if we can pull it out next week.”
On having Rimando in goal:
“That’s what we expect. He’s the best goalkeeper in the league and he’s been it for a while. We’re lucky to have him and we just like to help him out on the other end and get a goal and take a bit of the pressure off the defense.”
Sporting KC
Head Coach Peter Vermes
On Tim Melia’s performance:
“It was a very good one. I thought both keepers kept both teams in the game and we had a number of chances, they had a number of chances. I think the only difference in the gamer was the no call in the penalty. That was really the difference. I thought both teams, I thought it was a very good game for fans to watch it. The back and forth, I thought both teams played hard, there wasn’t anything cheap or anything, it was a good game. It was a fun game to watch and both teams played at a high level. So I think for MLS it was more than expected and it’s the kind of product you want to put at this time of the year.”
On playing to make the playoffs:
“We are only going to try and control what we can control. We are just going to play on Sunday and win. It’s pretty simple. That is better to be in that position then being on the outside and hoping everything falls your way.”
On the overall performance:
“I’ll start with Tim, he was fantastic. Sinovic has had more than enough injuries this year, and so many different things. For him to come in today, he hasn’t played a game in quite a long time, let alone 90 minutes in altitude. He was fantastic. I thought Matt Besler had one of his better performances in a long time, he was fantastic in the game, I thought Kevin Ellis as well. I told Kevin on the header he had late, I thought he could have chested it down and probably dribbled into the goal if he wanted to he was so opened. But, Abdul-Salaam was the same way. I can keep going, every guy was solid, the couple little changes we made in the game with Roger Espinoza wide, and Nagamura inside I thought was a big difference in the game as well. I thought Roger had a fantastic game on the left side. Dom's work ethic out front was tremendous.”
On Nick Rimando’s performance:
“Nick always come up big, he is a good goalkeeper. My point is both goalkeepers kept their teams in the game and at the end there was a no call in the penalty and that for me is the big story. It’s not good for the ref.”
Defender Matt Besler
On what he told his team to keep composure:
“Just grind away. We expected that and it was definitely what we expected. We knew Salt Lake really needed the win; it was their last home game today. They applied a lot of pressure and fortunately we stuck together. Tim [Melia] made some unbelievable saves and kept us in it. The way the game ends we had a couple chances there at the end to steal three points.”
On the entire season coming down to the last game:
“It’s hard to think back [to the beginning of the season] but that’s the reality. We have one game if we win it’s at home. We take care of business so everything is in our control that’s really all you can ask for this time in the season.”
Who the difference maker was:
“Tim behind us made a couple of key saves and kept a shutout. Every time you do that you always give yourself a chance to get a result and we had those two chances there at the end to grab three points.”
Goalkeeper Tim Melia
On what will be needed moving forward:
“I think we got to do what we did tonight. I think this is a result that we can really build off of. The tenacity, the commitment, our shape, our balance in game I thought was just excellent. If we can keep like this, I think first get into the playoffs and then if we’re competing like this every game, I think we can make a shot and take a run in there.”
On standing on his head:
“These guys have such a good job protecting me all year. We’ve done I think defensively, we’ve done pretty good taking a couple hot wires out there, but usually only giving away a few shots a game, and that’s because we have such a deep defensive team and such good midfielders and it’s more of when we commit together as a group you can see our talent. We just got to make sure we do that at this point of the season.”
On being held back offensively:
“We had opportunities. I thought Rimando played really well. He always makes big saves for them. We had 4 or 5 good opportunities, and I think there was a penalty, there’s a penalty shot in there and that’s a game changer. We created 3 or 4 good looks and on a different day one of those goes in.”
On having first clean sheet in a couple months:
“I think it’s just important building this point in the season, most importantly we got to keep zero’s. Going into our last game, and it’s a must win game at home against San Jose, and first and foremost we got to keep zero. I know the guys up top are a really good attacking group and they will get the job done.”
