Head Coach Ben Olsen
General impressions of the game
“There were some disappointing things about the performance, but there was some good stuff. From what I hear, Dwayne was not offsides. I thought they were poor all night long, the referees. I thought they had a poor night. They had a good spirit about them, but give us some credit. Again, there is no reason why we shouldn’t get out of here with a tie. That would have been a good result. Look, this wasn’t going to be all great stories throughout the year. We’re going to go through a tough patch. It is two games in a row that we have lost. Both games have been away. It’s still not easy to win in this league, no matter who you play and no matter where they are at in the standings. We dug in deep late, but it’s easy to dig in deep late and throw caution into the wind, but we need to dig in early and make sure that playing hungry and desperate, even when you’re in the top half of the standings, it is important. Until we realize that, we’re going to continue to give up points.”
On the Crew’s goal at the beginning of the second half
“It was a good ball. We kept them offside, but obviously, disappointing. It’s not a way you want to start off the half. Again, we should get out of here with a tie. I thought the referees were poor. They didn’t help us out one bit throughout the game and they didn’t help the goal. If we do that, then we would have been okay.”
On DC United’s statement of coming out with a response from last week’s loss in today’s game
“I think the mentality was there and the energy was there, I think we fouled up a couple plays and I think we were naïve in some spots. Again, overall, it’s not easy. It’s not easy coming here. It’s never been easy coming to Columbus. We should have got a draw. It’s not the end of the world. We will get back at it. We got a week. We will play Paris Saint-Germain. Those guys will be good exercise to work on some things and then we will try to get our revenge on Columbus next week.”
Midfielder Chris Pontius
On if there is any concern after losing two in a row
“I’m not concerned. I know what we are capable of. I know we will right the ship. I think everyone just needs to get that mentality back. Hopefully guys didn’t get complacent because you can fall fast in this league. We went from first to fourth in a week or so. There is no reason for us to have any cockiness, any complacency.”
Forward Dwayne De Rosario
On if there is any concern after losing two in a row
“Definitely disappointing, but we are in a good situation where we are still in it. A win, and we are right back in it, two wins and we are back to the top. Definitely disappointing the last two games, disappointing month of July for us. We’ve pretty much played our last game of the month and two losses back-to-back are not ideal.”
On if DC United came out with the emotional response that was talked about after the Houston loss
“To some degree, I think. I think we still need to get a little bit more anger, in terms of defensively, in our approach. I think we are too nice back there. I think we need to get more tackles, more fight and more aggressiveness. Of course, we don’t want to foul as much, like we did today, but we want to go in and add a little bit more of a bite to our game. I think we’re fine. Am I concerned a little bit? Yes, but I still believe in these guys and we’ll bounce back.”
Crew Head Coach Robert Warzycha
General thoughts on the match
“I think it was a good win for the club. We played against a very good team and you can see that they have very good players, [Hamdi] Salihi and [Dwayne] De Rosario. I think we did well defending and I think we were really aggressive. We scored a beautiful goal at the right time and we held on to the lead.”
On if he saw confidence in the Crew’s offense tonight
“I saw more intensity to be honest with you. We worked harder and there were no mental lapses. If you don’t have any mistakes and you don’t give up the goal, which can change the game, we can be very good.”
On his concern for defender Chad Marshall’s ankle
“Absolutely, with this season right now, I am obviously more concerned. It seems like every game we pick up another injury that keeps players a few weeks from playing.”
On if the Crew played with anger tonight
“Last game we gave up a goal too early. We gave up a goal in the sixth minute. Like I said, goals change the game and then we play scared. Today, we started pretty well. We always say that you have to win the middle of the field to be able to do anything. You have to win the ball high on the field. That way you only have 30 or 40 yards to the goal instead of having 70 or 80 yards to your goal. We were doing that in the first half. We were winning higher and we forced them to make some turnovers and that is why we had some shots on goal and why we were victorious.”
Columbus Crew Midfielder Dilly Duka
On how his first true game back went
“It was great, we won. I was happy to be out there. I felt comfortable given my previous injury. I went into this game confident and I’m really happy we got the result.”
On helping the team create chances
“I played left midfielder in the first half and I was rotating to right midfield with Justin [Meram]. I think there is a good mood on the team. Everyone’s just working hard, supporting each other. Josh [Williams] was my left back behind me and we have really good chemistry. It just worked out today. With hard work, you’re going to pull out wins, and that is what we did today.”
Columbus Crew Goalkeeper Andy Gruenebaum
On the backline rotation
“Obviously, we have a lot of depth at that position. It’s pretty seamless for any number of those guys, in any number of combinations to play in those spots. There are some things we need to continue to work on, getting used to each other too. We’re managing on the go and we were able to post another shutout.”
On if the win against DC United was a confidence boost for the team
“I thought we played really well tonight, now we play the same two teams on the road. It was definitely good to get a win at home and we will try and go into each game individually and pull out a result on the road now. It’s definitely a good confidence boost.”
Columbus Crew Midfielder Chris Birchall
On what his goal meant for him and the Crew tonight
“For me personally, it was only my second MLS goal and when one comes, it is always a special moment. Being so new to the team, it’s good to get off and get a goal straight away instead of always counting the days until I score. That was what it was like in LA. It took me two years to score a goal. I’m glad in the way the team played tonight. We were great offensively and defensively as well. Defense came on top again, we had a rough patch at the end, but we scored at the right time and held on.”
On if the win against DC United was a confidence boost for the team
“It was kind of a must win tonight, especially with two road trips coming up, if we hadn’t won tonight it would have given them confidence and it would have been so hard for us to get back into playoff position. For us, we knew it was a must win. We got the goal and kept them for three or four quality plays. We kept them quiet to a certain extent, and when we didn’t, either Andy [Gruenebaum] came up big or the defense came up big.
