QUOTE SHEET
PORTLAND TIMBERS 1-0 REAL SALT LAKE
PROVIDENCE PARK; SEPTEMBER 10, 2016
Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Jeff Cassar
On what Portland was able to do tonight that made the difference:
“I think they started the game very aggressive, very direct. I thought we handled it pretty well. We knew exactly what they were going to do. [Fanendo] Adi is a handful for anyone. They have two centerbacks that deliver a very nice ball into him. So I think we were prepared for it. I think the first goal was a little bit unlucky to be fair. They shoot, it deflects off our player and Adi is in a great position to put it away. Then after that we settled down and I think it was just a battle out there. Neither team was giving much up. It had a playoff feel to it. It had the physicality of the playoffs that’s going to happen. At the end of the day, we just weren’t really sharp enough in the final third to give ourselves the opportunities. We had a couple half chances. I don’t think we were prepared to take them, mentally. We would leave here down 1-0 and come back home and take care of business there. I do like the fight our team had and the commitment was there. We were a little off tonight.”
On Chris Schuler’s return to the starting lineup:
“Pretty good. Pretty good. Again, [Portland’s] front four are very dangerous. They cause a lot of problems underneath and in behind. I thought he was pretty dang good tonight.”
On the challenges Adi presents to the Real Salt Lake defense:
“Listen, he’s a very good player and when he wants to work extremely hard, he causes problems for any defense. I do think he gets away with some stuff. But you have to give him credit for trying to. He is very physical and puts himself in good positions. It was more about position tonight to him scoring the goal rather than them breaking us down or anything like that because it deflected off our player right to him and he took it well.”
On Javier Morales’ injury:
“Right now, it’s a quad injury. I don’t know to what level, but it was a quad injury. I don’t know exactly what happened. I’m anticipating it was when he took the free kick. But I have not spoke to him since the game ended.”
On Sunny’s performance and return to the team:
“I thought he and Kyle [Beckerman] did well. I don’t think he turned the ball over very much, was in good positions defensively. We talked about being in good shape and I thought we were for the most part. It was a massive step forward for him to get back to full strength and this was his first MLS game. A pretty tough environment, pretty tough team to come back and I thought both him and Kyle did a solid job. It just makes us deeper. Obviously when people pick up injuries, you need people to step in. We have to see how [Morales] is doing in there, but getting healthy is extremely important and having depth is extremely important.”
Defender Chris Schuler
On what makes Fanendo Adi so difficult to mark
“I think first thing is physicality. He’s tall, strong, fast, and he’s intelligent. He makes good runs. He knows his strengths, plays to his strengths and he’s technical. He’s able to do stuff on the ball, makes him a well-rounded player.”
On making his return to the Real Salt Lake starting lineup:
“I definitely didn’t want to do anything stupid. I definitely wanted to take a step forward. That’s trying to play simple, trying to play fast, trying not to make any critical mistakes, not get beat on dead balls, not get caught on the ball coming out of the back. That kind of stuff. Because that’ll make it a step back. I was able to make a step forward, which is very positive. My body feels good which is honestly the most important part after playing on this turf. I feel good. Did okay. The loss was unfortunate. We gave up a goal. We’re always focused on shutouts, but generally it was a solid performance I think.”
On the growing intensity in this matchup and playing on the road against the Timbers:
“I think Portland is one of the top environments in the league. They get a lot of fans. I think they’re one of the few teams that actually plays off the fans, which is pretty cool. Playing on the road in Portland is difficult.”
Forward Yura Movsisyan
On how Portland was able to stop Real Salt Lake’s service to him up front:
“They were compact. They did a good job of covering for each other and not giving us the space we usually want and need.”
On whether he thought there was a point Real Salt Lake was getting close to an equalizer and if Javier Morales made a big difference:
“Obviously [Morales] brings a lot of experience. Then we just as a team started stepping up higher, pressing up higher and dealing better with the balls we had. We didn’t lose it as much as we did in the first half.”
Portland Timbers
Head Coach Caleb Porter
Overall thoughts on the match:
“I thought it was a gutsy win. We’ve had some games at home recently where we’ve had a larger margin of victory, this game it took a clean sheet. I think that’s important. It’s important to put up a clean sheet and to grind out a 1-0 result. Obviously, we should have scored a second and third goal [but] sometimes you don’t. If you don’t score it you have to buckle down and grind and put up a clean sheet and we did. I thought our guys played with a lot of heart today and gave everything in terms of the intangibles and that’s what it takes. That’s the difference in this league. In terms of talent, it’s pretty similar but it takes hunger. It takes the intangibles. It takes defending. Everyone. All 10 guys and I thought we got that today.”
On the club’s home form:
“That's 10 wins now on the year. Our form at home has been better than ever and that’s the reason we are where we are at. Obviously we need to get the road form right. We know that but if we take care of business in the home games, we’re going to be in good shape. We know we can win on the road. We know it’s not a problem. It has been this year, the results, but we know how to win on the road. We’ve shown that the last two years but we don’t need to worry about that right now yet. We need to just win this next game at home and that was the goal, to get six points in the next 2 home games. The reason we play so well at home is we play aggressively, we play to attack, we play proactively [and] that was the goal today, just like last week. When we play that way, that’s when we’re at our best and we need to maybe take a page from our home book on the road. We tried that last week, for some reason it didn’t come off. Maybe it was having Darlington [Nagbe] and Alvas [Powell] not there but we’re at our best when we’re pressing from the front and we’re creating turnovers. We can be a good counter attacking team but we can’t be a counter attacking team for 90 minutes. We’re not good when we just sit deep for 90 minutes and you saw when we did sit a little too deep, that’s when [Real Salt Lake] gave us the most problems. We need to keep playing on the front foot, pressing high up the pitch because when we do that, that’s when we’re at our best."
On possibility of playing a single pivot down the stretch:
“I think we can pull that out every once in a while but I think Darlington is playing awful well wide. When he plays in the middle, it’s interesting, because he ends up playing sometimes too deep and too conservative. Yea, he plays well but he plays well in any position. I’d like to play Darlington on both wings and play him everywhere. But with this group Jack Jewsbury brings set pieces, he brings leadership, he’s very good at getting the ball off the backs and helping us in the buildup and he's a smart positional player. The other thing is Jack allows us to push [Diego] Chara higher. Chara can now float around and hunt the ball and look to press. It helps our pressing because he gets higher. Then he’s very good on the counter, so once he picks up balls and runs or joins the attack he's good in that 8 role, so I think that’s been a good tactical shift. I think that’s the best way to go with this group. You can argue that all you want but this is a different team this year. We don’t have Rodney [Wallace]. We don’t have Jorge [Villafana]. Those two guys were very good defenders which helped kind of balance out a single pivot. I also think anytime you change something tactically sometimes like we did end of year you get a little bit of that initial impact and then teams start figuring it out. Which is why early in the year we went back to it and it wasn’t working. Everybody was bringing wingers in, overloading Chara. Then we don’t get Chara’s ability to go hunt the ball and float around and Darlington ends up having to come too deep to help and he never gets in the final third. These are all things we’ve talked about but we weren’t getting results out of that early in the year but who knows maybe we can still use it in certain games to throw a wrinkle in."
Forward Fanendo Adi
On his success in scoring against Real Salt Lake:
“I think I just go into the game believing I can help the team win. I thought we played very well back to front. We stepped up really high, we got the goal from a step up and I think [that] was important, but the goals sometimes just come and I was just lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”
On what he saw in the play leading up to the goal:
“Just instincts. I saw when the cross was coming and I was just there. Obviously, he could miss it and then he missed it. I was right in front of the goal but I think I could take a shot with my left foot but I wasn’t very sure of it so I had to bring it back to my right and it was a comfortable one.”
Midfielder Darren Mattocks
On his return to Providence Park after suffering an injury on July 10:
“Yeah, it was great to be back. I felt really comfortable out there. I enjoyed the game very much. The defense could tell that, I think. It was a great team performance tonight. It was what we expected, so we’ve just got to keep pushing.”
On how he was able to affect the game on both sides of the ball:
“I was really surprised that I did so well for 70 minutes. As I said, it was my first game back for two and a half months I think. So to come in and do so well, so early, I was really comfortable but we just have to keep pushing. I think the team did a fantastic job and I think everyone is bought in, not just the guys who started the game. The guys who came in and the guys who didn’t even play. Come playoff time, we’re going to need everyone and I think we showed that tonight.”
On the combination between the Timbers front four:
“I enjoy playing with those guys. I think Darlington and I have an understanding from Akron. With Valeri and Adi, we catch on pretty quickly. I think we all understand how each and every one plays, so I think it just falls naturally. I think we’ve got that family team sprit about us, so whenever we play we just look in sync, and I guess that showed tonight.”
