MLS Post-game Quote Sheet
Real Salt Lake 2 : 3 LA GALAXY
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2012
RSL HEAD COACH JASON KREIS
On jumping out to a quick 2-0 lead…
“Yeah, that’s my strong feeling that those two goals came so easily that the guys thought this was going to be a cake walk, and because of that, really let their foot off the gas and took a long time to recover from that.”
On what went well in the first 30 minutes of the game…
”I thought we approached the game in the right way. We were really aggressive with our spirit and aggressive with the ball. We got the ball in their half of the field, strung some nice passes together, got some nice chances to score and took them. I’m really, really pleased with how we started the match and then not pleased with a lot of things from there. However, I will say that I’m pleased the guys never gave up. They were going after the win until the 95th minute, so there was no quit in them tonight.”
On RSL’s back line…
“Yeah, ultimately, I think that was our demise. Tony makes a really lax pass to Nick that Landon steals, and then the momentum just shifted completely. I thought we would recover from that mistake pretty quickly and would have a positive ending to the first half that would put us in a good place going into the locker room, but it wasn’t really there. I think there were a lot of guys feeling so disappointed about it that we didn’t recover the way we needed to and in the second half, another give away leads to a goal so it’s disappointing. I’d like to make LA make their own goals, not necessarily give them to them.”
On the Olave substitution…
“It’s injury related. He’s carrying an injury and I think everybody can see it’s affecting him. He also was ill yesterday. We are very, very thin on the back line. If we had a healthy Schuler, we probably wouldn’t have played Olave, but at the moment we don’t really have a true center back, so now you’re talking about shifting players all over the place. And, I was trying to get in a little more attack otherwise I’d put in Tanaka--defender for defender. But, I was trying to be positive and go for three points at home.”
On RSL pushing for the three points…
“I think the way LA played tonight and their shape made it such that our forwards needed to take some risks. They were just attempting to counter attack against us, so I think we looked forward to the opportunity to take some risks. And we’re going for three points no matter what every game.”
On preparing for Saturday’s match against San Jose…
“You can’t do much training between now and then so its mostly getting the guys recuperated and we’ll have a chance to talk about what went wrong for us tonight and what needs to be different come Saturday. We’ll look to see what kind of reaction we get; I know what reaction I expect, but we’ll see what we get.”
On Morales…
“He’s getting there. You know I think that come Saturday we take a real strong look on whether or not he can start and at least give us 45-60 and build him towards 90.”
REAL SALT LAKE GOALKEEPER NICK RIMANDO
On the change of momentum after Real Salt Lake was up 2-0…
“Yeah, they stuck in it. They had a good game plan; you’ve got to give credit to LA. They sat back, played good defense and wanted to counterattack. Tonight they countered on our mistakes.”
On what changed in the game after the first 30 minutes…
“I have no idea. We gave them all of their goals. So, I don’t think they created a lot. When we made our mistakes they capitalized.”
On whether the mistakes tonight were frustrating…
“No, not at all. They were mistakes, not everyone’s perfect. Not every team is perfect. You go out with the mindset of playing the perfect game, but it’s never going to happen. Today those mistakes all came in this game and hopefully there aren’t going to be too many more going forward.”
REAL SALT LAKE DEFENDER NAT BORCHERS
On what happened to get to the end result of 3-2…
“It’s pretty bewildering I think to be up 2-0 and lose the game 3-2. I think we made some mistakes and I think we all know we made some bad mistakes in terms of our possession and they made us pay. Let’s give them some credit.”
On whether or not the team got down after giving up the first goal…
“You go into the locker room 2-1 up at halftime and we think that we’re still in control, we are still in the driver’s seat, but we gave up that second goal. Then we tried to push to go for the win, because that’s what we do when we’re at home, we’re always going to try to win.”
REAL SALT LAKE FORWARD FABIAN ESPINDOLA
On what happened after going up 2-0…
“We had innocent, stupid mistakes. After that we just lost the game.”
On his feelings on the game…
“I don’t feel anything right now cause we lost. It doesn’t help when you lose in front of all those people. It just hurts.”
On what lessons can be learned from the loss…
“Can’t give up a goal so easily. You got to play every game like it’s the last game of your life.”
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On tonight’s performance by Landon Donovan…
“ Fabulous. That’s the kind of player that Landon is, he is certainly capable of doing that. You know there were some great balls on some counter attacks; obviously the first goal was a mistake by Beltran and he had a great pass on Magee’s goal for the second goal and Magee gave him a great pass to push Landon behind for the third goal. It was a great performance by Landon and by the whole team. We hung in there, we were a little unlucky to be behind 2-0 and that had all the makings of a disaster. To get that goal before halftime was big.”
On LA’s composure after falling down 2-0...
“I think that is a good word, we kept our composure and certainly getting a goal back before going into the locker room was important. The second goal early in the second half gave us a chance to get a point and obviously the third goal was huge. Getting three points is fabulous.”
On winning in Rio Tinto Stadium…
“Well, it hasn’t been easy for us to win anywhere this year so…but certainly this has been a venue that has been tough to get a win in so getting three points in a place like this makes the win that much more gratifying.”
On what this win will do for the LA Galaxy…
“We are starting to move up the ladder a little bit. Three games ago we were sitting in a difficult position and now we’ve got six points in two games and we want to get another three on Saturday and that would put us in a decent position as we try to improve in the second half of the season. This week would indicate that things are moving in the right direction.”
LA GALAXY FORWARD LANDON DONOVAN
On tonight’s match …
“I think Saturday, our game gave us some life again. Actually, even though they scored those two goals, we didn’t feel bad about how we were playing so the energy was still good, the commitment was still there and then obviously you have to get that first goal to get back in the game. It was a little bit of gift but you’ve got to take advantage of them.”
On Real Salt Lake’s performance…
“They are a great team. For probably the last four or five years the road to the championship goes through them and vice versa for us. Its chippy but there is a lot of respect both ways. We play hard and after the game we shake hands.”
On LA Galaxy’s past performance and looking ahead…
“I said it Saturday and I’m going to say it again. We’re not going to get carried away over two wins now. We’ve had a really poor start to the season so we’ve got a lot of ground to make up. We’re real envious of the position Salt Lake is in and that’s where we feel we should be. We need to do our part to keep winning games and worry about everything else later, but we’ve got to keep winning games and keep the momentum going.”
On defending against Real Salt Lake attacks…“I think our attitude was good. Defending a lot of times is a mentality. Against this team it’s very difficult. I saw we limited them to five shots on goal, which here at Rio Tinto is I think a pretty remarkable accomplishment. I just thought our attitude, our effort and our commitment was great. It wasn’t perfect all of the time, but some guys made some big plays.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER MIKE MAGEE
On LA Galaxy’s overall performance…
“It was quite a rough start for us. If we kind of continued the path of what we did early in the season, we would have lost that game five-nothing. We fought hard and we stuck together and showed some signs of 2011.”
On win at Rio Tinto Stadium…
“When we were walking back in the locker room we had a ton of confidence and then somebody showed us a picture of the standings and we’re still in last place or third to last so we got brought back down to earth real quick.”
“This is a huge place to get a win. They are such a good team in general and they’ve kind of built a fortress here. I haven’t had too many successful games here or left all that happy being here. It’s a big moment.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER DAVID BECKHAM
On tonight’s match…
“Once we found out how to pass the ball around, when we did pass the ball around, we got through the defense. I think even at 2-nil down we had a couple of good chances where we split the defense and we saw that there were gaps. We still felt confident even at 2-0 down. We still felt capable of breaking them down and I think we did that.”
On the confidence the win gave LA…
“It’s a huge confidence boost. Each game that we play, it doesn’t matter who were playing against, it’s a confidence boost when you win. We just need to keep moving forward. A performance like that takes a lot of character from the team and individuals. We had that tonight. We had done well over the weekend, and obviously coming in here is a tough place to come and a tough place to win. We worked hard tonight, I think we deserved it.”
