Head Coach, Ben Olsen
On the result…
“Minnesota raised their energy in the second half and we weren’t threatening enough going forward. We had some tired legs so we’ll regroup, use the day off and get ready for our home game next weekend."
On VAR decision….
“They made the call and we have to live with it. It was a tremendous effort from us but we’ve played a lot of games in a short amount of time and we fell short."
Forward, Wayne Rooney
On if he felt it was a game DC could/should have taken something from…
“Three points I think. I feel that we, after games, need to learn from some of our performances, and today we didn’t learn. In the game, the second half seems to be a mental thing where we come out and we’re hanging on, and although, as I said last game, we showed great resilience today, I thought there was space to play and I think we lost it a bit too much at times. I think everyone watching the game could see the goal coming and could see how the goal was going to come, from a cross from their fullback. It was coming for 15, 20 minutes, and I think we deserved to concede it because we didn’t learn and we didn’t close the space.”
On what his take is on the disallowed DC goal…
“I haven’t seen it back. From where I was, it looked fine, but the referee said that Fred [Frederic Brillant] grabbed the goalkeeper’s arm. From where I was it looked fine, but I just haven’t seen it. That’s the issue now. You have VAR now, and you’re banking on the referee’s decision when he watches it, and what he feels is a big contact or a small contact.”
On how he felt about the field…
“I think it is what it is. I’m not going to make excuses about the field. We knew it weren’t great before the game, and we had the chance to warm up obviously before the game, so we have to try to adapt. Of course it didn’t play great but it’s no excuses for the result.”
On if he feels that the team has had an issue with getting chances in the open field of play as opposed to their success on set pieces…
“Yeah of course. I think we do well on set pieces, but we’re not creating enough chances. I think that’s partly because, well a lot because the second half of games we’re letting teams almost get the ball to the edge of our box and get crosses into the box, and we’re relying too much on someone to defend and clear the ball. It’s something of course that we have to address, and we will address that and try to get that right."
Defender, Donovan Pines
On how he felt about scoring and then finding out it was called back…
“Yeah I was pretty ecstatic and really happy that I scored. I don’t know how they called it back, I didn’t look at the replay in time. It was kind of unfortunate, but that’s the game, so we just kept playing.”
On what goes through his mind while waiting to find out if his goal would stand…
“Just please don’t call it back, please don’t call it back. I thought I deserved that goal, I thought I timed it right, perfect header that lofted in, and they called it back, and I was like, wow. It’s unfortunate, but you know just keep playing and then they got another goal.”
On if he felt it was a good defensive performance today despite the goal at the end…
“Of course, it’s a tough atmosphere to play at, great crowd, great fans, it’s an incredible atmosphere. We just really dug deep and played really hard. Defensively we were defending for most of the game, I thought we could dig out at least a point, but I think they got lucky in that last play. They crossed it in, it skipped right through both [Lucas] Rodriguez and my legs, and it’s unfortunate how that happened. It’s okay, we’ll move on and just get another point next Sunday.”
On if he looks back at the Minnesota goal and thinks of things he should have done differently…
“As a defender, I always try to make sure that I cut off both angles of the goal, which I was pretty close to doing, and to make sure that if he trapped it I would have a body on him so he would go backwards, but it was unfortunate that the ball just went through both of us. I don’t think he did that on purpose, but I think it was just kind of fortunate for him, unfortunate for me, and just an unfortunate scenario all over."
Defender, Frederic Brillant
On the result of the match
“Yeah, especially in the second half and the transition was not good enough as well, again we concede a goal so yeah disappointed. It’s a tough place to play. We have another game to play, we have to keep our head up and we can keep going.”
On defense tonight
“They didn’t have too many chances to score but we conceded. We work together one week and play two tough games, we were ready to compete and doing something well. And yeah we lost. I think we have to keep going, keep the head up and look forward to the next game.”
