QUOTE SHEET
Utah Royals FC 0-0Seattle Reign FC
Rio Tinto Stadium; Sandy, Utah
June 27, 2018
Utah Royals FC
Head Coach, Laura Harvey
On Christen Press:
“She’s a threat. You get her in the final third, she’s going to shoot. I felt that you couldn’t tell she hasn’t played 90 minutes in a long time – which she hasn’t. I felt her and Amy in the first half were a big threat. It made Seattle change shape which rarely happens against them. Once they changed shaped, it took a bit of time to settle back into the game and I felt once Katie came on we became a threat again. I thought Christen, bar a goal, it was a very good performance by her.”
On what was expected from Seattle:
“It was a little bit different. I thought their press was higher. I think maybe the heat played a factor into that but we knew they’d get on the ball. Rumi, Allie Long, very good on the ball, but I was okay with them having it in their half. I don’t think Rumi and Allie hurt us in our half at all. We restricted Rapinoe to get on the ball. It’s nice to play against players you know very well. The one thing I expected, I thought they’d press higher so that was something we spoke about at halftime. Then they changed shape in the second half, went to three in the back and it just took a little bit of time to get used to that. I felt the backline did well. They reduced to them to next to nothing. Single story for us all year, we have to win those games. You’re going to come away from it, watch it back and be disappointed you don’t win.”
On what to take away:
“If we can create that many chances, we just have to score. Apart from putting the ball in the net, I felt we were dominate, we pinned them in their half, from the 70th minute onwards there was only one team that was going to win it. That’s sometimes when Seattle can be at their best and we still nullified them to one cross in the box. We’ve just got to build momentum from that and be very clinical in the final third.”
Forward, Christen Press
On the crowd and her performance:
“The crowd was fantastic. It was a lot of fun to play in this environment. I’m really excited about this season, future seasons and building a relationship with this fan base. They were awesome. Of course I’m very disappointed in the result. As a forward a 0-0 score-line is incredibly disappointing and I take that personally to my job to finish chances. We go back to the drawing board, we have two days and then we get to play again. That’s the upside.”
On team chemistry:
“I think to build chemistry is the goal with any frontline. I think there were enough opportunities in the game for us that could have won. That’s a good start. From there, for me as a forward, the biggest thing I always think about is that feeling on the field: ‘do your teammates trust you to score?’ When there is an opportunity, when the game is on the line, are they looking for you? Do they trust you and believe you’re going to score? I think that belief in of itself puts the ball in the back of the net. That of course comes with time and you build that trust by finishing challenges. Today was ground zero and up we go.”
On her fitness:
“I felt fine. Physically I felt good. I don’t know how I’m going to feel in the next few days but I’m prepared to play Saturday if that’s what is asked of me.”
Abby Smith, Goalkeeper
On defensive performance:
“ I think as a whole our defensive mindset has been the same all year. We want to be tough to beat and I think we did a really good job with their offensive threat. Rapinoe is a great player but a good majority of the team is great on the ball moving forward so we wanted to make sure that we were going to be hard to beat and I think we did a really good job with that. We wanted to rebuild off of this past weekend and I think we did that and I think it's also great having Press on the field, she’s a great addition to our team.
On playing multiple games in a week:
“Recovery is key. Obviously it’s not ideal to have 3 games in one week. I think everybody throughout the league would say the same just because it’s really tough on our bodies but we've got to do what we've got to do and we just have to turn it around and get ready for the next game and I think for us going forward we just want to make sure were taking care of ourselves.”
On Seattle attacking late:
“In all games there's always momentum shifts. We didn’t know when it was going to happen but we had to ride the wave but I thought we did a great job with creating as many chances as we did but at the same time I thought we did really well defensively to shut down their momentum and just kind of ride the wave; but we also turned it around really quick so their momentum didn't last as long. Their are other games like North Carolina where they are great going defensively and attacking; so making sure that we were sound and charged the whole game and as a whole we did well to limit their chances.”
