QUOTE SHEET
Utah Royals FC 1-0 Chicago Red Stars
Rio Tinto Stadium; Sandy, Utah
May 3, 2019
Utah Royals FC
Head Coach Laura Harvey
On the third straight win:
“I think Chicago is an excellent team. With or without the national team players, I feel like this is arguably one of the best Chicago teams I've seen in this league. Coming into it I knew that we had to show a better performance at times. What we've shown in the previous two weeks, I think in the first half, we did some really, really good things. Arguably, they got more momentum when they were down to 10. Sam Kerr is always a threat, always. I think that the fact that I felt that the momentum of the game in the first half was all us, and, honestly, I'm so happy we won. I'm so happy we got a result. But I think that for me, we need to be better in the second half. Again, 1-0 wins are great for multiple reasons. One is that we should have scored more goals, we should have created more opportunities. I'm just really proud of the players that they went all in and never gave up. I've said it before, I'll say it again: I think that last year, we wouldn't win that game. We're showing a lot of character, a lot of mentality and some quality that the goal was a great finish. Great. I mean, the grit, from Gunny to even get the cross. and then A-Rod's just quality finish. We've got things we need to be better at. We're very, very happy with the win. But again, we want to be better.”
On finishing 1-0 in the first three games:
“It just gives me heart attacks. I just want us to score two, and then I can just relax a little bit. But 1-0’s are great after the game. We just saw RSL’s Nedum Onuoha after the game and said, 1-0’s are great after the game, but horrendous in it. Because you’re always on edge. I'll take 1-0’s all year, if we get where we want to be.”
On Sam Johnson:
“She's calm. She's experienced. She knows Chicago very well. And, when we traded last year, she was sort of behind the scenes. Christen took the limelight a little bit in that trade, but we knew that she could play a really big role this year with Becky going to the World Cup, and obviously Rachel going to the World Cup. She's a star in this league for anyone. We’re just fortunate that we've got some excellent center backs and our team and it just showed that she's one of them. She can step in when she hasn't played for a while. She trains hard every day. She’s just composed, calm, and nothing phases her. She's probably not even out of breath. That's the type of person she is just makes the game look easy. Which is great for me.”
On the halftime talk:
“We tried to go to the plan and I felt we were better in the first half honestly. Our attack was better, and I thought we found spaces more. I'm a huge Rory Dames fan and I'm a huge Chicago fan. We are good friends. I think the way that his teams defend like they did in the second half, they make it very difficult for you. I actually thought in the first half we made really good work there. But I thought in the second half, they got the better of us at times, defensively, from their press. You have to give them credit. We need to be better at that.”
On the difference on the beginning portion of this 2019 season:
“We've got winners in this group and they weren't happy with not winning last year. They weren't satisfied with what that looked like. We know each other way better now. I think the Gunnys, and the Desirees, and Bowen and Rachel, all of them, they're winners. They want to win and they're not satisfied when they don't. I think we didn't know enough about each other last year to know that straight away. We were too nice to each other at times because everything was new. That's not the case now. We are accountable from the staff, players, all of us. We break things down, we are critical of ourselves, we applaud ourselves when we need to. And ultimately, we were really honest. I think the biggest thing is when you are like that as a group, you can push forward. Sometimes that's not nice. Sometimes we don't have nice conversations all the time. But we have a good group that wants to win. When they do, it's great. But even on the field after the game tonight, we celebrate with the fans. Then we say we need to be better as we need to be better at that. From a coaching perspective, that's music to my ears.”
On the second half subs:
“Erika’s greatest trait is recognizing space, getting into it, and being dynamic towards the back line which makes them drop. I think that the more she keeps doing that, the more she's influential, the better it is for us and the better it will be for her. She's working really hard to change her game a little bit to suit the way that we play. I can’t credit her enough because I thought in last week in Orlando, I thought she was excellent. I thought that she did really well when she came on time as did Mandy Laddish.”
Forward Amy Rodriguez
On the sequence that led to the goal:
“You know in all that excitement you kind of black out a little bit afterwards but I just know that in that moment we’re tied 0-0 later in the game, we know that Chicago’s down a man and we just keep getting opportunity after opportunity. I really just wanted to be that player for my team. I know that the ball came in across, I think from Gunny, right on the ground. I was able to kind of cut in front of my defender and basically touch it back post. But credit to the girls that just worked so hard under me. I just tried to get a one touch on it and I did.”
On the final ten minutes of the match:
“I could sense the air getting a little bit tighter on the team. I know that as the time is ticking, we know that it's tied 0-0 we need to push for our goal. But as a forward and as a player who's played so many years, I know to keep my cool. And I know to keep playing through it, keep pushing. Because the last thing you want is to kind of hurry our finishes or rush a pass. It's really important to stay calm in that moment. I think our team did excellent in that.”
On three 1-0 wins:
“It does feel really great to have a clean sheet again. For us, we just want to keep charging and keep chugging away because we know how difficult it is, especially as the season goes on to get points so as many points as we can rack up now the better for us. We just need to keep putting ourselves at the top of the table.”
On the halftime talk:
“I think at halftime we discussed the potential formations that they were going to play. Not knowing what Chicago was going to put out on the field just given a man down but I think things went according to plan. We kept pushing forward. We kept staying on our front foot. The goal came from a wide ball across, which we knew that they were going to have space on the wings with being a player down. We’re happy to come away from this game with the 1-0 win.”
On the different feeling of this season compared to last:
“It feels so different than last year. I remember last year feeling very frustrated. I was coming back from my injury and all I wanted to do is support the team, help the team try to get three points because we kept walking away from games, unfortunately, with one point at a time or zero points. I mentioned earlier, it's so important to kind of rack up the points early on, because the later we get in the league, the more intense it gets, the more teams are fighting for those last-minute points. I don't want to be in that position that we were last year and miss out on the playoffs by one point. This is going to be a new year for us and I think we're starting out strong. Our mentality this year is intense. I think that we are on our front foot and we're willing to push and we want to set the tone early with a lot of teams. Laura and the staff have really done a good job of pushing us and motivating us. I think that that's what you're seeing on the field and that's why we're walking away with three points tonight.”
On the confidence she gets from being able to rely on her teammates:
“Credit to Nicole for a great game. I think she made some crucial saves for us when we needed her to. I've been a part of a few championship teams where we've had goalkeepers that had to make big time saves and that's what you're seeing out of Nicole Barnhart and in today's game, she held her ground. She was that brick wall for us, and I couldn't be more proud of her and happy that she's playing on our team.”
Midfielder Gunny Jónsdóttir
On what the winnings streak means:
"It means a lot. Last year I think maybe nine points after 10 games, or something, we just tied and tied, and starting off the season with three wins in a row and a clean sheet is very important. Also, since we lost a couple players for this game it was good to step up and it just shows how strong this team is and we came out here and we were gonna win and that's what we did."
On what is different this season:
"Last year was a short preseason, we had never played together. It was just a new team, so I guess we just didn't know each other as well, but now we have grown as a team and gotten better every day and it's good to be a part of it."
On her cross leading to the goal:
"I just knew Amy [Rodriguez] was gonna get there, or I hoped so, because I didn't get off the best cross. I knew she was gonna get there, she's fast and I was very happy that she was there.”
On finishing 1-0 in the first three games:
"If you don't concede goals, you at least don't lose and that's a good thing. I think we're just slowly getting in a rhythm and just figuring out how we want to play. I don't think we're too stressed about scoring too many goals. We're winning, that's what matters."
On Vero in the midfield:
"She's got the European style, the Spanish style, of keeping the ball, being very technical. It gives me and Desiree [Scott] room to be the players we want to be, winning and just passing through, so it's very good to have her on our team. She definitely makes a difference."
On the Icelandic chant:
"I love it. I love it, it gives us a chance to show appreciation to the fans, because they mean the world to us and just having all these people in the stands cheering for us helps us. It definitely gave me a boost today when I got tired, hearing everyone cheer. I just want to give back and it just gives us a relationship with the fans to do something with the fans.”
