HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN
On the match overall:
“Putting aside [the injury], it’s a pretty darn good effort from the guys. For being out three weeks without real game action it was a pretty good performance. I thought we started out very good. We worked on running in behind, and I thought our movement was good. I saw Charlie Davies back today, which is a great sign for the club. Dwayne [De Rosario] was himself, just making big time plays. And the defense [did well] in getting a shutout. It was overall a good night for us.”
On Chris Pontius:
“No, [there’s no early prognosis]. He’s in a lot of pain. He’s a pretty tough kid. I’m hoping for the best, but we’ll see.”
On whether he saw “malice” in the tackle:
“Not really, no. Although, I will say, that wasn’t the first time Lopes was in the mix on some hard challenges. I don’t want to comment on it because it was on the other side from our benches.”
FORWARD CHARLIE DAVIES
On his mentality going into the game:
“This past week after the break did a lot for me. I was able to really clear my mind, get fit, and this whole week I’ve worked really hard. I finally felt one hundred percent mentally and one hundred percent physically, and I hadn’t felt like that in a long time. So I knew I was ready for this game. I wanted to come out with a bang; it kind of felt like my first game. Kudos to the guys for finding me. [De Rosario] was really harping on me being a hard worker and making my runs and it showed today.”
On the goals:
“Obviously being a striker when you get a goal things start to open up for you. Fortunately Chris [Pontius] made some great runs to get the ball in behind and basically gave me tap-ins. That made me more confident. I made a lot of deep runs to help stretch the team and it paid off.”
On the importance of the result:
“We know the playoffs are nine games away. We want to be in the top three, forget the wild card. The push starts now. We know this was a very important game. Chivas has 31 points, we had 31 points. We came out and showed that if we work hard we’re a very tough team to play against. We just got to keep it going and make sure we stay healthy, that’s the biggest thing. Hopefully Chris [Pontius] isn’t injured too bad and he’s back on the field, because I think this new look offense we have is very tough to deal with.”
MIDFIELDER SANTINO QUARANTA
On what worked:
“We were confident with our front four or five guys that we were better than their backs. We thought we could get at them. The energy was good and the partnerships we created were pretty good. We wound up scoring goals and that makes the game a lot easier. [Sometimes] you come out and you’re all over a team but you don’t score and you keep them in it.”
On the importance of the victory:
“Critical going in to next week. You play a little bit looser, a little bit freer. We just have to keep doing what we’ve been doing to win games. It takes a lot of hard work, a lot of energy and scoring goals.”
CHIVAS USA HEAD COACH ROBIN FRASER
On the game:
"The disappointing part is that we didn’t give ourselves a chance, meaning, so early in the game, to give up goals on simple turnovers that lead to goals is just unacceptable. When we’re chasing the game 2-0, from there on end, we have a lot of possession but we’re still not as dangerous as we need to be. Then we get to the second half, and end up giving up another goal by counterattack, tackles being missed, lots of individual small things leading to goals and that’s not good enough.
One approach is to close the door on it and say it was a bad day and move on, but I’m a little to practical for that. A lot of it, we just have to look at ourselves and look at what mistakes we’ve made and be able to commit to making the same kind of mistakes. At the end of the day, if you give team goals, you are making it really difficult for yourself and I thought the goals we gave away today we’re incredibly soft.
We have to be honest in our assessment, we have to be honest with our analysis of the choices we make with the ball and the choices we make without the ball and we have to get better from it. It really doesn’t matter if we played well in this game and the other game, at the end of the day, we all get points and if we don’t get points, it’s not good enough."
FORWARD JUAN PABLO ANGEL
On making it to playoffs:
"All the things that we needed to do today we didn't do them. We were playing for a chance to be in the playoffs and this was a team that we needed to beat, especially at home. We weren't up to the standard that we required to beat this team and win this game."
MIDFIELDER SIMON ELLIOT
On how his team played:
"We always talk about the right things, we always work on the right things, practice the right things. So to have a great opportunity like this and not execute this again is very disappointing."
On how his team is currently performing:
"There are tough weeks and there are good weeks, and that's part of the business. You have to come in and be consistent, you’re not going to win every game, and you certainly don’t want to lose every game like we did tonight."
