Head Coach Caleb Porter
On the game
Should have been 1-1. It’s a penalty, and I’m tired of officials not giving us calls. This is actually the first time we’ve had one reviewed recently. We’ve had handballs, so it was good to finally get one reviewed. I don’t know how a guy who’s officiated 3 games in this league overrules a VAR that’s officiated over 200. It’s shocking to me, the game should have been 1-1, and it’s a penalty to me. 100%.
On being up against tough results
We can’t be victims, but I need to stand up for my team. We get no calls, absolute no calls. We have not gotten any, all year, all season. Guaranteed if it’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the box versus J.J. Williams, a rookie, they’re not even looking at it, they’re just calling the penalty. The fact that an official who’s only officiated 3 games overrules a VAR, who recommends that he looks at it, is unreal to me. The official had a complete disaster. We can’t have officials who have officiated 3 games doing these types of things. It makes an absolute mockery of our league.
On the young players on the team
I thought we had some good performances. Sosa performed extremely well. Bouba, he’s only 19 years old, played extremely well. On the goal, he probably could have recovered a little better, but I’m really pleased with him. I thought my group gave all they had, honestly. We’re going to have our heads up as we move onto the next game, but I can’t stand for this type of officiating and bias, and for me, I’m tired of it.
On managing the frustration
Maybe I need to talk about it more. There have been a lot of games where we didn’t get calls and I didn’t complain about it. The one I did I got an apology from the league, because they agreed that it was a definite goal that they took from us. This is another one that is a definite PK, so I’m going to be the squeaky wheel and we’ll see what happens. I have got to stand up for my guys because that’s a PK.
On the response
The response is just about moving on to the next game. I saw some good things individually today with some guys that hadn’t played. The first time was excellent. Again, it should have been at least 1-1. The second half was a battle, the guys gave all they had. We fizzled out a little in terms of chance creation. We could have been a little more patient. I thought we got too direct at times, but when you look at the group that’s in there, in the game, there’s not a lot of experience. You’re going to get that as time goes on, but that’s a 1-1 game.
On the squad put on the field tonight
I think when you’ve got guys in the back that are inexperienced, they start to force things they don't stay patient. And obviously, we’ve got the guy up top with a couple guys with Sosa and JJ. These guys are young kids and haven't played a lot of games. So there's a little bit of that. And when you learn from that, because we started the game really well, we executed extremely well, the better team in the first half: We should have gotten a PK. We hit the post, we had other moments where we should have scored, and Sosa had a really good chance. So those are some of those things. We're not scoring in those moments, I've been saying that, but I'll say it again. Same thing defensively, it's one ball over the top. It's a pretty routine play, and we have to make those plays. But today, we got a goal taken away from us.
On if he thinks everything is going wrong for the Crew
I think everybody knows we're close. If you've watched the last three games to see how we played first half to see the chances to see how we limited the movement. You're not seeing that close, especially with the group that we have, which is a lot of the guys that don't normally play and without key guys––designated players. Two of them––obviously guys that are at the spine of the team that bring a lot of confidence and help us play the way that we want to play. And but I'm pleased with the group that we played overall with how they've worked. I can't say enough about their effort. I want them to live longer with their heads high. I'm assuming you get back to work and get some quick turnaround. We can't linger on this game. We can't have a hangover tomorrow. We have to put it behind us. We’ve got to get ready for Seattle. And we're going to have obviously the same group of guys that played in the last several games that we're going to have to select from. So we’ve got to pick ourselves back up and get ready to win the next game.
On what to do to prepare for Seattle:
There's no training really. We'll do a little on the pitch on Friday. Tomorrow we're traveling back a little bit. It's mostly sleep, rest, and nutrition. And we're going to do walk throughs and watch the video and figure out who's going to start. We have six rotations. Some of those guys did really well. You know we have a lot of fresh bodies as well that we can go to.
Defender Harrison Afful
On the takeaways from the match
We had some positive moments, which is good. We had a penalty and the referee didn’t call it. We just need to take our chances. It’s over now so we just have to go home and correct the things we didn’t do well and make sure we stay positive.
On what it takes to start scoring goals
I think we’re doing things right. We’re sticking to our game plan. Putting the ball into the back of the net is something we need to start doing. It’s something we need to work and improve on.
On his fellow defenders
I think everyone on this team is doing their best. They’re doing their best to put the club at the highest level. We just need to stay together and stay united.
