Quote Sheet
Real Salt Lake 1-4 Vancouver Whitecaps FC
BC Place; Vancouver, British Columbia
Sunday, August 29, 2021
Interim Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni
On moving on:
“I think there’s way too many variables to begin to try to dissect this and find some pertinent information on the fly. This game has to be won on the human level, and by that I mean you have to have the right mentality when you approach any game. When you win that, especially on the road then you can start to talk about the way you want to go about it from a tactical perspective. I feel like we didn’t have the right mentality. Physically, I think they were first to most balls and picked up all the loose balls. It was a very difficult match, and there were two of the strangest goals I’ve seen in a long time. When you concede an own goal, or essentially two own goals, it’s going to be difficult. So given that and the circumstances that the players experienced this week, it wasn’t easy, but I find solace in the fact that they kept going and found a goal. It’s something that when I addressed them, it was that, let’s focus on what we’re doing moving forward and what we’re going to do approaching Dallas. Hopefully we’ll have Aaron [Herrera] and Damir [Kreilach] back and have the mindset at home to really get after it.”
On the first full week in charge:
“It’s been one of the craziest weeks and I’m sure the players haven’t seen too many like this as well. It’s really about getting back to where we were prior to this, and that’s training the right way, having the right mentality, and more importantly finding the solution to what is now an issue with our set pieces. We’ve been great for the first 20 matches and now we’ve conceded in the last 3, so I think we’re not giving ourselves much of a chance to get into the game when we’re conceding soft goals. In the beginning of the year, we were stalwarts in that department, so a couple of things, but at the end of the day, it’s one of those games where you just have to move on. Like I said earlier, it’s not a game that you can get much out of given the circumstances.”
On zonal marking against set pieces:
“We were looking to change it up, but given that we had no time and yesterday we were training at the Vancouver facility, I felt that it was best to stay with what we had versus having a lot of doubt going with a hybrid. It would be silly to be married to something that at the moment isn’t working. We will look at a couple of different things this week now that we have a bit of time to do that, but that is definitely a focus moving forward.”
Midfielder Albert Rusnák
On the match:
“It went wrong pretty much everywhere. First goal conceded was a set piece again. Last two games we’ve conceded twice from set pieces, and tonight two more. The first goal is important in every game. The second goal, it's an individual mistake, then another set piece goal later on. We shot ourselves in the foot and it's not the first time this season. It was our worst game of 2021.”
On missing key players:
“This happens, injuries and suspensions happen. The next man that is coming to play has to be ready. I don’t think this game is to be blamed on individuals, I think this is a collectively bad performance and a loss. At this stage of the season every game is crucial. It’s a frustrating one. I can’t stop thinking about the goals that we conceded. It’s tough because you work so hard to create a chance or score a goal and then on the other side we give up sloppy goals. It was a tough one tonight.”
On the turf and looking ahead:
“I don’t think the turf played a major part in the loss, but we probably won’t take anything from this game to Dallas. Maybe we will watch a video at the start of next week, but that’s that. This is one of those games you don't take anything from into the next game. Maybe in the last 5-10 minutes there was some good stuff there, but personally, I don’t want to take anything into the next game.”
