HEAD COACH BEN OLSEN
Thoughts on the game:
I thought it was a pretty good game on both sides, pretty entertaining game for national television. Unfortunately, we came out on the short end. Overall, you know we probably deserved to come out on the short end - we had trouble dealing with the inter-changing, Le Toux is a handful; he’s a very good player and he poses so many issues with how busy he runs and toes the line and we were naive in a lot of our defending. All three goals were just very, very school boy mistakes balls over the top, and then diving in on the 3rd on, just bad mistakes, and they’re pretty tough to capitalize on.
Injury to De Rosario:
He took a knock to the knee. It was one of those where he wasn’t a 100%. I think he’ll be okay. It’s just a knock not a sprain or torn ligaments. We’ll put some ice on it. Get him ready for Sunday.
ETHAN WHITE
On the goals:
We were a little stretched, the forwards were high and their midfielders had too much time on the ball.
On the first goal:
The ball hit the back of my shoulder. I was dropping off and I saw the ball coming in and I tried to follow the runner, but unfortunately the ball went straight to Le Toux.
On being down 2-0, did the team feel like it could get a result:
Yeah, going into the second half we felt good. We came from 2-0 down and battled back, we had a good amount of possession. Unfortunately, we gave up a goal at the worst possible time. Momentum swung back their way and we started rushing things more than we did before, we couldn’t keep the ball and we were back in our third for the last 30 minutes.
On what they can take from this game going into the final stretch of the season:
Well we have to learn from our mistakes. We’ll watch some game film and make sure the mistakes we made won’t happen again. We can’t dwell on the past. We have games ahead of us that can help get us into the playoffs so we have to keep our heads up and move on to the next one.
DWAYNE DE ROSARIO
On Philadelphia’s physicality and some of the tackles he’s been seeing this season:
Well, I mean that’s understandable especially in a game of this magnitude. And that’s what I would like to see from our team as well - to step up because when some of your key players are getting taken out you have to step up and do the same. Two teams are battling for a playoff spot and we have to step up to that and match that. So it’s to be expected [the physicality], but I don’t think there is anything malicious in it. It came down to two guys competing and I just happened to be on the wrong side.
On the team’s attitude coming out of the second half:
A team is always going to have confidence after they’ve come back from two goals down like that. And I think we scored two pretty decent goals. We worked for those goals but we gave away two early ones and we can’t do that to ourselves. Especially not after a performance like the one we put in during the past week. We can’t go from playing like that to letting up goals like that. It’s unacceptable. But with that said, we have to put it behind us as quickly as possible because we have another game on Sunday. But it’s definitely disappointing because I can’t really say they had to work for their goals and that is the most frustrating part because they were basically on a platter. I mean, the third one was a good strike but still he was at the top of the 18 yard box and he had the whole net to shoot at. So we can’t keep doing this to ourselves. First, we have to take individual responsibility and look at the game and see where we made our mistakes, improve, and then like I said, come back harder Sunday to fight against another team who’s fighting for a playoff spot in Columbus.
On holding a few games in hand on the teams atop the Eastern Conference:
It’s definitely a positive especially looking at when we give up games like this. We can say okay, look, we still have two or three games in hand on some other teams. We definitely can’t take that for granted, it will probably come down to the last three home games against a bunch of teams who are all fighting for playoff spots. But we have to focus on the task at hand and that is this Sunday against Columbus first. I mean you see flashes of brilliance but we need consistency. Every guy needs to demand more from himself and that’s pretty much it.
On progression he has seen from Philadelphia after his third time playing them this year:
I mean you have to look at how Le Toux stepped up after [Carlos]Ruiz left. I think Ruiz left a big hole and they took a while to adjust, but that is to be expected when you lose a player of Ruiz’s caliber. If he were to leave any team you’d have a little bit of a draw back. But you know [Peter] Nowak, he’s a good coach. He gets the best out of his guys and you saw that tonight. They have young guys like us who can step up to the plate and do well for him so at the end of the day I think there has definitely been an improvement. They are playing more as a team, as a unit, than in the past.
HEAD COACH PETER NOWAK
On Michael Farfan:
Mike was pitching in too high. Also the two forwards Pauno and Seba did pretty good job to pressure the center backs. We had a lot of space on our left side, and then too much of our speed. So we change. After we talked with Gabriel and both of them I think Gabriel was doing a very good job so we switch them back. Michael got the very nice assist for the second goal for Seba [Le Toux]. We have to play to our strengths because Michael is doing very good defensively. I think the second half he showed what kind of player he is., and he still a young player.
Frustration with tie at second half:
Three points is massive in this kind of competition. So there is no frustration on our part, on my part, whatsoever. They did pretty good. There was no frustration whatsoever in the locker room. We believe that we did have a lot of chances in the first half to be in the lead. I think it was just a matter of time before we were going to score a goal. The boys, the group did believe from the beginning that we can win the game. The intensity was good. We need to be a little bit more clean and calm especially when we are in the lead to get more chances, to go behind the defenders. I think that we did a pretty good job to make sure end in a good spot, the pressure was there, the spacing was very good whenever the ball comes back we were in a good position to get the ball and play it forward. I think it was a massive step towards the playoffs.
Le Toux’s recent goal-scoring compared to the beginning of the season:
He joined the twitter, probably.
On team work:
No, as I said he that the group [has] come together very well. It was always our strength not to look back. You know it’s very easy after a 2-0 lead to get two goals, but we still played very good soccer I think. We deserve to win this game and others. There was no patience. The work we all did. The group, day after day, week after week, they worked together. How they work together, how would they respect each other. They still want to learn still a young group. The excitement is there - it’s a good thing.
On Zac MacMath:
Listen, a lot of people scratched their heads when we draft him. There was a lot of questions why. I think he shows we draft him for a reason. We knew then that he’s going to step up. He took his time he learned from Frayd [Mondragon], He sees every single day the real professionals, and now he’s still behind us. It’s a very good thing we have a young 'keeper that can play the game like he did when we lost Frayd.
ZAC MACMATH
On the second half:
We gave away a counter attack goal and a set piece goal and other than that we dominated the first half and we just went out and did that for a second half.
On giving up two goals:
It’s just something that you gotta realize the only thing that’s going to help the team is to stay composed and stay confident back there. And that’s what I try to do. To give up to goals like that, to give up the lead… I think the team really pulled together.
SHEANON WILLIAMS
On stretching out D.C.:
It’s something that we knew going into the game, you know, once you open up the game they get really stretched out and we went after that. And we found some good spots, Roger [Torres] and Michael [Farfan], a bunch of guys did. I thought they did a good job with that.
On the Eastern Conference standings:
We want to be in first place like every other team. So we’re going to keep going at it. We [have] got a couple games left, our last home game and some road games. We’re going to try to take as many points as we can.
