Head Coach Ben Olsen
On the second half:
“I’m not sure [how to describe it]. I may have to go look at it again. It was pretty eventful – I guess that’s how I’d describe it. I’m obviously proud of the guys tonight. Losing the lead twice and coming back shows a lot of spirit. There’s something to this team, they’ve got a little bit of chutzpah. Again, I was proud of them, every one of them did their job tonight. We had a couple plays when we fouled up, and [Houston] capitalized and we had guys bail them out. That’s part of being a team, and I’m just proud of them tonight.”
On Houston Dynamo:
“Give them a lot of credit, they just keep coming. You’re never safe with Houston; they keep coming and coming. That’s why, to do that against that team, is even more impressive than [doing it against] your average MLS team. They are great at putting you under a lot of pressure, particularly with balls in the box, and I thought we handled it down the stretch very well.”
On the team’s mentality:
“I think we were pretty ramped up. We know their strengths. They come and play physical, and you don’t get a lot of chances. We wanted to, again, match the fight and then hopefully let the soccer take over. The soccer, early on, was very good; the ball was moving, two touch. Dominic [Kinnear] made some adjustments about 20 minutes in. He tucked his wide guys in and helped out in some of the spots we were exploiting. We had a little bit of trouble, we were having to go deep, and then Maicon [Santos] did pretty well. I thought we were unlucky to not get Chris [Pontius] sprung in behind several times. I thought Chris was great; Maicon, obviously a big game. Marcelo [Saragosa] comes in there and helps out, and Robbie [Russell] bailed us out, played a little center back. Perry [Kitchen] had the mistake, but overall, we’re asking him to play a position he’s not used to. I thought he gutted it out too.”
On Emiliano Dudar’s injury:
“We have some options. Perry’s played there before; Robbie’s played there; [Daniel] Woolard’s played there. It’s not ideal because [Dudar’s] been a stud, and we’ll be missing him, and obviously Dejan [Jakovic] is out. We’ll have to make some adjustments. Again, there’s some spirit to this team, and a little adversity isn’t going to scare them. In the next week we go play a very good San Jose team. We’ve got to pat ourselves on the back tonight, but tomorrow get focused on recovery and going to play a tough team out West.”
On Chris Pontius:
“Today is the first time I really realized he can play forward. He’s going to learn the position very quickly. We’ve asked him to not be a guy, tonight, to not just stand on [Houston’s] two center backs because that’s what they want. We wanted him to pull them out with runs in behind and runs underneath, and I thought he did a very good of executing that. He got Maicon some room, and it gave them a bit of trouble.”
On Chris Pontius and Maicon Santos:
“Maicon is a big boy and willing to do a lot of the work as far as holding the balls up and fighting. Chris is very mobile underneath and behind. He plays off [Maicon] very well. For now, it’s a good partnership.”
D.C. United forward Maicon Santos
On his first goal:
“We talked before the game and said let’s get some goals tonight and we hoped so. I looked around and saw that I had the space to run. Pontius chipped the ball very well.”
On his second goal:
“It was a beautiful cross. I was just doing my job. I headed it very high, the ball was also wet, and that helped.”
On D.C. United’s attack:
“We’re working together as a team both inside the field and outside the field and that has been a great point for us. It’s been pretty good.”
D.C. United goalkeeper Joe Willis
On the second half:
“It was a back and forth half and luckily we have a team full of guys who have a lot of fight in them, and it showed.”
On Houston’s second goal:
“It was in tight, and I just didn’t push it out. It got under me.”
D.C. United forward Chris Pontius
On the team’s resiliency:
“I think that last year, we don’t come back in this game. We keep fighting and getting goals. For our back line and our team to come back and pick up the win, obviously, it is huge.”
On the unbeaten streak:
“It is obviously one of our goals to put some streaks together. If you look at the past four games, four Eastern Conference teams, we come out with 10 points out of 12. I think that’s pretty good for us, especially when you are looking at the Eastern Conference.”
D.C. United midfielder Danny Cruz
On the team’s resiliency:
“We gave up the lead, but I think that we have shown over the past few weeks the heart that this team has. To do what we did tonight against a good team is pretty impressive. It is a huge three points.”
On the unbeaten streak:
“Two in a row is great, but we’re not satisfied with that. We came in here happy, three points is huge, especially against a good team like that, who we are going to play two more times.”
On playing against his former club:
“I was a bit nervous. It was different than I expected, I’m not going to lie. Stepping on the field against people who are like family, and people who helped mold me to who I am was a bit different. There were nerves there and I think it showed and hopefully I can perform a little bit better the next time we play them.”
Houston Dynamo Head Coach Dominic Kinnear
Overall thoughts on the match:
“Disappointed, we fought back to get back into the game twice. We aren’t helping ourselves by giving up some poor goals, but on the other side we are scoring goals on the road, which is a good thing. [D.C. United] just scored one more goal than us.”
Houston Dynamo Midfielder Adam Moffat
Overall thoughts on the match:
“Obviously disappointed with the final score. We brought us back into the game twice but then we got a little bit careless in possession and [D.C. United] was going for it offensively.”
On the second half:
“We got our goal pretty quickly and we didn't let them hold on to that lead for long. But we got our goal and then we gave up a goal pretty quickly, so that’s something we obviously want to change. We battled – we battled hard – but we leave disappointed with the result.”
