QUOTE SHEET
Real Salt Lake 4-2 Sporting Kansas City
Rio Tinto Stadium; Sandy, Utah
July 4, 2018
Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Mike Petke
On the game:
“I think that we started really playing around the 25th to 30th minute. Before that, the guys will hold their hand up and say the same thing: it wasn’t good enough. After the goal and the hydration break, things started flowing for us in both attacking and defending and I thought they did a very good job with our counter-press and reactions in transition after that point. That created a lot.”
On Corey Baird:
“He’s done well. He’s a young kid, he has to gain experience. I think that a more-experienced Corey in three or four years will already have 12 or 13 goals to be honest with you. He has put himself in good positions, he has a high work rate, he is a very unselfish player doing a lot for the team as far as his running, his working, his pressing. He forces defenses to be honest because of the space behind. With more experience Corey will become more of a finished product.”
On high pressure:
“It’s not a buy-in thing. If they haven’t bought into my stuff by now, I shouldn’t be here. I’ve been here for over a year. It’s a mentality; it’s constantly working on it and then accepting and understanding what we are trying to do in the press. I think there was a large stretch tonight where we did fantastic in the press and the counter-press. I said it in the post-game show, you look at the Red Bulls and Atlanta, teams like that who do it for 90 minutes. It doesn’t happen overnight and I don’t even know if I want to become a high pressure kind of team. They did it well in large chunks tonight.”
On beating top-of-the-West Sporting KC:
“It’s huge. It means a lot. This is a new rivalry to me over the last year. You see it tonight, the passion, the bite, two red cards and how many yellows which there probably could have been some more. It means a lot but we still are behind Kansas City quite a bit. It means three points for us and we kept them at their current level.”
Forward Sebastian Saucedo
On his goal:
“I’m super happy with getting my first professional goal at the RioT. It’s a dream come true. As a kid, I’ve always dreamed of being a professional soccer player and obviously this is my home town, and not many players get the opportunity to play at home. A lot of players have to sacrifice and play away from home and I’m looking up to my girlfriend, my family, and everyone who supports me.”
On what changed after first KC goal:
“I think it was that water break from Mike [Petke] getting mad at us. I think it was a little bit of a wake-up call. Truly, we have such a special team. We have really great players all around; we have leadership. We have players that have been here for such a long time and players that play at the international level. I think if we connect and keep it going, I think we could be a special group in the future going into the playoffs. We just have to keep focused and keep working hard like we usually do in training sessions.”
On the transition that led to his goal:
“Us young players, especially Savarino with Corey up top and Albert, we like to counter quickly. We caught them in transition and I got the ball down the left and I give major credit to Danny. I think Danny made a pretty long run and he took Zusi out to the right, and I was able to go inside and shoot. I think that was a huge important run for me to be able to shoot the ball.”
Forward Corey Baird
On scoring three goals in the first half:
“I think we recognized just how poor we were at the start of the game. We let them have a lot of time on the ball, we weren’t getting pressure in the midfield or backline. They were able to find pockets but once we were able to get pressure we disrupted their possession and that led to great possession from us and opportunities opened up. We have our highs and lows but when we’re playing well we’re one of the top teams in this league.”
On coming into the 2nd half with a 3-1 lead:
“It’s easy to get complacent after ending the first half like we did. I think Mike [Petke] did a good job of leveling our heads at halftime letting us know how poor we were in the first 25 minutes. As long as we came out with the same attitude we had after the hydration break we knew we could get a win here.”
On beating Sporting KC:
“I think it’s definitely a statement. We’ve had a lot of games where we’ve played really well for large stretches of the game but weren’t able to convert our chances and then we end up losing at the end of the game. I think KC had periods where they were on top but we really capitalized from the moments we were on top and we finished our chances.”
Sporting Kansas City
Manager Peter Vermes
Thoughts on the match:
“We shouldn't have given up the first two goals in the first half. And then the third just killed us. You can't come back from deficits like that all the time.”
On how to halt the slide after back-to-back losses:
“You've got to score more goals than the other team.”
Goalkeeper Tim Melia
Thoughts on the match:
“It's embarrassing. We really need to just kind of look within and look at us as individuals. We're not playing like a team. We're making mistakes all over the field from back to front. We need to really take a look at ourselves, unwind after this game and figure this out.”
Defender Seth Sinovic
Thoughts on the match:
“I thought we started the game pretty well and got up a goal. We just didn't play our game from there. We gave them opportunities and they took advantage of them.”
On falling behind:
“That's unfortunately been a giant problem for us. We're putting ourselves in bad situations where you have to come out and fight back in the second half. Obviously, it wasn't enough tonight.”
On preparing for Toronto:
“We've just got to compete better. We've just got to be better all the way around. Toronto obviously are the champions from last year. They haven't been off to the best start so far but they're an extremely dangerous team and at some point they're going to turn it around. We can't let it happen against us.”
