QUOTE SHEET
Utah Royals FC 1-0 Washington Spirit
Rio Tinto Stadium; Sandy, Utah
August 8, 2018
Utah Royals FC
Head Coach Laura Harvey
On starting off with a strong attack:
“The reason we did it was because they’ve [Washington Spirit] been playing a back-three recently and we gambled that they were going to do it again – and they did. The aim was to try and get Ericka, Amy, and Christen high up against their back three, with Katie as someone who can play underneath and set the tempo. I thought it did work. The gamble was that we might leave ourselves exposed at the back but we dealt with that okay; there were a couple of times where we were a bit stretched. We were prepared where we would attack as a front four and defend as a back six and I felt when you get that in your mind and that’s what you have to do sometimes you can prepare for that and I thought we were.”
On Katie Stengel:
“The thing with Stengel is she is a true goal-scorer. She is a Target-9 or Underneath-9, like we played her tonight, and there isn’t many of them in the league who can hold it up the way she can. We have an abundance of forwards who can score and when you have Press, A-Rod, Katie, Diana, Taylor and Ericka in and around, it’s who you deal with. One of them is always going to get open. The frustration for us tonight was we kept finding the one who wasn’t open – we could have found another one. A little bit of brilliance by Diana gives Katie that one second of breathing space to get the shot off. The reason she has success is she keeps believing she is going to score.”
On the bench changing the game:
“The people like Taylor and Ericka work absolutely 100% every single day and luckily they’ve trained all the time in altitude so that was a huge difference maker on Sunday. Christen and Amy haven’t been in the altitude in weeks, so we knew they probably would die at some point tonight. To bring these guys on, and the game starts to stretch with the likes of Taylor, Diana, Ericka and Stengel, it’s when they come alive because those are the games that they like – when they have a little bit of space to play. I think I get the credit when the subs do well. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t and thankfully the last two games they’ve worked.”
On going forward:
“Every single game we have to look at as an individual one. I said to the girls tonight ‘I think Washington is a team that have all the tools to be successful so you can’t take your foot off the pedal at all.’ I felt we really dominated tonight. The Seattle game, we’ve got a bit of bite inside of us that we really want to show that we are better than the score we had against them. If we get three points against them, we turn this week into a nine-point turn around, even Seattle might be looking over their shoulder, we’re catching them. I’ve always said to the players that I think we are so close to getting where we want to be. If we can get three points on Saturday it puts us in a fantastic position to really push on towards the backend. Home games are so vital and I wouldn’t say Seattle is a must win but it’s a game where you don’t want to lose.”
Forward Katie Stengel
On her scoring form:
“I’m surrounded by players who all have this mentality to win every game. Everyone is coming in knowing we have to give it everything we have. We have players like (Christen) Press and Amy (Rodriguez) who draw so many defenders which opens up pockets for everybody else.”
On the last 20 minutes:
“The game opened up as it wore on and we kept possession, knocked the ball around and we were a little more patient than the first half. Finally connected those passes at the end. Which led to chances”
On being the top scorer on the team:
“Going in to the season I had my own personal goals. Perhaps people around me are drawing more defenders which allows me to be open and if I’m open I have to put away my chances.”
On the next match being 3 games in 7 days:
“We have a really deep roster and hopefully we’ll make some changes to have fresh legs. We need the win and if we’re going to make playoffs we have to fight every game.”
Goalkeeper Nicole Barnhart
On the last couple of games:
“It was tough not playing the beginning of the year but I trained the whole season as if I was going to play. I made it to the point where they had to make a decision and coming into the Orlando game was the start. Laura (Harvey) talked to me and told me I was going to get the last game which helped me build momentum for this game. I felt like I didn’t miss a beat from last year.”
On the backline and the clean sheet:
“It speaks volumes to the depth that we have on our team which we have seen in past games when so and so has come in and made an impact. I think they did a good job and I think that comes from organization. A clean sheet is always the goal because it increases our chances of winning. We pride ourselves on clean sheets and to have that tonight is huge.”
On regaining momentum:
“We were unlucky at times at the beginning of the season which some things did not go our way such as injuries. We found ourselves the last couple of games and we’re playing with more heart and desire.”
