SPORTING DIRECTOR AND HEAD COACH GREGG BERHALTER
On the result of the match…
It was one of those that you’ve got to dig deep for. It wasn’t our best night. Give [the Red Bulls] credit for how they press. I felt like we could have played out of it quicker. Anytime we did get across the field it looked good. But, I’m proud of the effort. Your back is against the wall. You’re looking at a loss and you keep going, and you keep going, and you get something out of it. I’m really pleased with the effort.
On Waylon Francis contributing off of the bench…
I said that in the locker room to the guys. It wasn’t just Waylon [Francis], I think all of our substitutes did a great job, and they changed the game. Cristian [Martinez], Hector [Jimenez], and Waylon. And we know Waylon’s quality, and it’s just about getting him into a rhythm and getting him confidence. He’s a very good leftback in this League.
On the back-and-forth play of the match…
I thought that they were very man-oriented with their press in the first half, and we thought movement would make space for our midfielders. And they just stayed man-to-man. Sacha [Kljestan] stayed with Wil [Trapp], Felipe [Martins] stayed with Tony [Tchani], and Dax [McCarty] stayed with Mohammed [Saied]. And unfortunately we weren’t able to create that space that we were counting on. So we had to adjust, and we did adjust at halftime. We moved back to a more traditional formation. We wanted to spread them out. We wanted to play between their lines a little more and continue to focus on switching the field. And I think the second half was much better.
On Ola Kamara’s mental toughness . . .
He has good movement and you see he had another chance that was blocked by a defender that was in the right spot at the right time. I think he could have had a couple goals today. His movement is excellent and he doesn’t give up. He keeps fighting.
On adjusting to the offense without Federico Higuaín . . .
I think it’s getting back to the basics of what our system is. Our system is moving the ball and moving the opponent and we need to get back to that. I think in the second half, as we did that, it became clear what was going to happen. It became clear that we were going to get opportunities and we were going to put the opposing team under a lot of pressure. We need to get back to that.
On
the effect of New York Red Bulls’ yellow cards . . .
We mentioned it at halftime, to be aggressive against those fullbacks, who we knew had yellows. It was a physical game and to give them credit, I thought they outperformed us in the first half; much more physical and they won many more duels than us. Give them a lot of credit. They came to play.
On
his feelings about the previous two match results . . .
Again, we won’t make excuses for the guys that aren’t here and we won’t say that we are happy with ties. I think that this entire group works so hard and they believe in the team concept. It’s about the next guy stepping up. We still expect not to have a huge dropout in performance, even though there are different guys on the field.
DEFENDER TYSON WAHL
On the result of the match…
Obviously at home we’re looking for three points, and we ended the game in the way we wanted to probably start the game. If we started the game maybe with that urgency then maybe we would have gotten three points. It is kind of a moral victory, I guess, and we’re looking to build off of the one point, even though we’re expecting three at home.
On
the
New York Red Bulls’ goal . . .
I tried to make a play on the cross, so I was pulled out of position. Then I think Michael [Parkhurst] had to make a tough choice because he was two versus one and then they were just able to find the far post. I think either I shouldn’t have stepped out there or maybe we could have been marked a bit better in the box. It was a tough play though.
FORWARD OLA KAMARA
On the atmosphere of the stadium after scoring the goal in added time…
Yeah, the energy was unbelievable. I think if we can get that goal a little earlier, and get the crowd like that, then we will win the game. It’s about that. We were lucky that the supporters came out today like this, and we really felt them behind us the whole way. And you can see how we can pick up the game in the second half, even though they scored. We took over the game, and we showed that character.
On processing this game ending in a tie...
I think we were fighting quite well in the whole game, but the thing is maybe in the first half the game is a little bit how they like to play. You know, it’s a lot of long balls, second balls, and fighting. And we didn’t get that momentum playing our style. But you can see after their goal we’re playing our style. And then, in the end, they started to go down with cramps, they got tired. That’s how we have to play, and I hope that we can get that momentum and energy that we had in the last minutes there or the whole second half, and just carry it over to the next game.
On his goal…
Yeah, it was a tap in. The cross is perfect, that’s so important that a defender can just hit it in that open space. So I try to keep the space open so I can just run into it. Don’t be there too early, because then I can’t tap it in. It was a perfect cross, and that’s how I like to score goals.
