Head Coach Ben Olsen
Overall thoughts on the game
It was very disappointing; we looked like young kids. This is going to happen, we have always said that we are going to have games when young kids make mistakes – that I can live with. But the lack of commitment at times was unacceptable. I think we started reading our own press a little bit, everybody thought we were on a roll, so now we don’t have to do what got us a little success – and it’s a little success. We are in the middle of the table if you take this whole league.
Offensively it was pretty good; two good goals, and it should have been a few more. If we can score two goals, we should win games.
San Jose came in here and did exactly what we did in LA and Portland. They got the message and we didn’t; that is unacceptable. Giving up four goals again is not good. So we are going to look at some film and fix it next week.
We think we are a little bit better than we are, so maybe it’s a good thing that we got punched in the face. Maybe we will get the message that even at home you don’t get games handed to you.
I don’t think we were aggressive enough. We took a step backwards, but it’s not the end of the world.
On Steven Lenhart’s hat trick:
[Lenhart] is a hat trick player if we play the way our defenders did today - so are a lot of players. He’s a handful, but there are ways to deal with that and we didn’t do it. But I give him credit; he fought for every ball and over the ninety minutes he just wore those guys down.
On Blake Brettschneider’s performance:
Blake [Brettschneider] scored a great goal. He was pretty sharp on the ball and had a good night.
On Andy Najar:
Andy [Najar] had a great night. He played with real passion out there, and we didn’t have enough of that.
On Fred as a starter:
Fred has been a great pro. It wasn’t easy for him coming here and playing limited minutes. He gives us a little bit more creativity, but again, I don’t think a lot of the players got what the game needed. But it’s not all about us; they came in with a pretty good game plan and did their job.
D.C. United forward Blake Brettschneider
On scoring United’s second goal:
[Chris] Korb looked up and found a little gap through [the defense]. I was initially looking for the layoff, but when I saw how far off it was I tried to play the ball back and make good contact with it. It was nice to get my first real [goal], but on the night it wasn’t good enough and we have to keep working forward.
On what went wrong in the second half:
We had several chances – it’s not that we needed to create more chances. I don’t know, we just kept let [San Jose] keep coming and coming. We had a couple of mental errors and overall we didn’t finish our chances, so you can look at it both ways.
D.C. United defender Chris Korb
On his overall impressions of the loss:
I think we came out slow and that they came out with a lot more intensity. We got that first goal and [San Jose] got that next one, and you can’t give up a goal right after you equalize. It’s always heartbreaking to give up a goal that quickly. We got the second [goal] to tie it back up, and five minutes after halftime you can’t give up a goal. The last twenty minutes we had some opportunities, but we just couldn’t finish – it was a tough day overall.
On United’s defensive struggles:
I don’t know what happened. I feel like they scored on every opportunity they had. They didn’t miss their chances, and in the first half we finished a few of our chances, but in the second half we couldn’t [finish]. It comes down to finishing your chances and we couldn’t do that today.
San Jose Head Coach Frank Yallop
On the play of forward Steven Lenhart:
I think it’s been coming for Steven [Lenhart]. He’s had chances, but he scored in the last home game and he gets a hat trick tonight. [I’m] very, very happy for Steven because he’s been through a lot this year with his family stuff and moving from Columbus, so [I’m] very, very happy for him and he looked really good tonight for sure.
On playing D.C. United:
Well I think anytime you come to D.C. it’s a tough game. To be honest, I told our guys in there just after [the game] that we just played and beat a good team. [D.C. United] is a good side. I love the way they move the ball, they’re very dynamic in their play moving forward, they create chances, their ball movement is good, and they’re dangerous. I think that we went in here with a game plan to make sure that we try to nullify their good stuff which I thought we did pretty well, but you can’t keep a good team down and they scored two goals at home. I just think the difference was [Steven] Lenhart tonight with [Simon] Dawkins coming on [and] Khari [Stephenson] did a nice job in the first half. But I thought our ball movement and our actual general play was excellent.
San Jose forward Steven Lenhart
On his team’s effort:
I think the first fifteen or twenty minutes everyone was caching their breath and I think the whole first half we were just trying to get to halftime. But then in the second half we all kind of came out and battled for each other and stayed tight in the back and worked as a team and kind of showed who we were as a team. I think it was a good performance.
On playing against a D.C. United backline consisting of three rookies:
You respect them as players. It doesn’t matter their age. [As for] my style, I just try and show up and impose who I am as a player and person and tonight it seemed to work, so it was cool.
San Jose midfielder Simon Dawkins
On his goal:
It feels great [to score]. Any goal you score is great. It was an important one as well to put us 3-2 up, so it really got us going and then the fourth goal we scored really topped the game off.
On his team’s effort:
I thought [our effort] was fantastic. We just played so well. We controlled the game in parts of it and we were the away team. That just shows how many good players we have here.
