Real Salt Lake
Head Coach Jason Kreis
Thoughts on RSL having a possible letdown with LA playing without Donovan and Keane:
“Yes I do. It wasn’t just Donovan and Keane, there were five players that started tonight with the Galaxy that aren’t typically in their strongest eleven. So much so that when I got their lineup I was nervous to even write it up on the board. I was wondering if there was any way I could just sneak it in that they were playing LA’s strongest lineup. I feel that our guys have had a tendency over the past to let down when they are playing a team that they think is weaker than they are; and tonight they got shown that team isn’t weaker than we are. Their eleven was better than our eleven.”
Thoughts on RSL’s FW’s Alvaro Saborio and Robbie Findley being late scratches:
“It’s difficult as we’ve seen in that past, it’s difficult if we don’t have a target to play to up front. Someone like Sabo, someone who is going to stay central for us the majority of the time. Garcia worked extremely hard and was dangerous all night. Plata had moments where he was dangerous, but they were playing so wide of each other in the first half that there was very few times that we could play to a forward in a dangerous position, to hold the ball up for us and to get more numbers involved in the attack. Tactically there is still a lot to learn from those guys.”
Thoughts on missing a veteran forward when down a goal(s) in the match:
“Somewhat, somewhat; especially because you know that the space is going to become very limited to play in behind teams when they have a lead, especially a very well organized Los Angeles Galaxy team. You’re going to need to be able to play in front of them, play off of somebody and move in around them. That guy for us typically is Sabo who provides that target and that person that will hold the ball up for us so that we can join him.”
Thoughts on Olmes Garcia being unlucky by hitting the post four times this season:
“It is his fourth time, and I think all of them have been crossbars, the first one against Dallas might have been a post but post and crossbar even, I don’t know. So yeah, a little bit unlucky but you’ve got to figure that it will come for him.”
Thoughts on consistency lacking:
“Absolutely. We have not strung together two wins this year, we have strung together I think a couple of positive results. If you look at the positive result in Vancouver and then positive result last week, that positive result we were winning that game at a certain point so I don’t know if you can look at that as much of a positive as I would like. For me it’s that we are finding our way a little bit, unfortunately I felt that when we’ve had a good performance we have had a drop off immediately after. That comes from guys just feeling a little too comfortable with what they did, and thinking that they have arrived a little bit. We saw our last really big match we had against Seattle; we went the very next week to Colorado and were very poor. Then last week was arguably maybe our best performance of the season at home against Chivas, and we started out the match today very poor.”
Thoughts on that lack of consistency being related to the many new faces on the team:
“I don’t know; I’m searching for an answer myself, but when we have as many veteran players out there as we did tonight Borchers, Beckerman, Morales, Grabavoy, Rimando, Schuler now, and Beltran these guys have been around the league long enough that you wouldn’t think they would play inconsistently. I’m not making judgments of any individual player, but I think collectively that we have to really build ourselves more up for these games and recognize that in every single match that if we don’t put in everything that we have we will get beat. We will get beat even by teams that are missing five starters.”
Thoughts on using tonight’s game as a gauge to see where the team is at:
“I think that I have the same conclusion that I’ve had all along; that if we don’t put everything we have into it, if we are not very focused on the detail, which we weren’t tonight, that we will lose games.”
Los Angeles Galaxy
Head Coach Bruce Arena
On beating Real Salt Lake on their home turf:
“I don’t think we dominated, but we played well enough to win. We won the last time we were here last year. We really came in today prepared to win the game – no question about that. Our guys held together for 90 minutes.”
On the Galaxy’s move into second place in the Western Conference standings:
“It’s great, and we need to keep winning games.”
On Brian Rowe’s performance:
“He was outstanding. There’s no other way to put it. We obviously felt that, coming into the game, that he’s a good goalkeeper, however he had no experience in the league. You’re always concerned in the first few minutes of the game, but he looked pretty composed right from the start. He had a good save early, and had great concentration to make a bunch of saves throughout the evening. As I said, I thought he was outstanding.”
On the performance of the younger players:
“Charlie did a good job. He kind of hit the wall a little bit in the second half, as expected, but a good first goal – a good first game. Again, he’s another player who played his first game tonight. We were really pleased that he got a goal in his first game. We can’t complain about that, for Rowe to get a shutout in his first game, on the road in Salt Lake.”
On how the veterans helped the younger, less-experienced players on the road:
“They did a great job. There’s seven veterans on the field, so it’s not like we just had a bunch of kids. The group of DeLaGarza, Gonzalez, Sarvas, Juninho, Magee and Franklin were giving our young players confidence in helping us get the result.”
On his team’s overall performance:
“Our team shape is very good. Our center backs did not stand and drive, they were organizing the group ahead of them, our line moved pretty well and we got good blocks in the midfield. Early in the game, [Real Salt Lake] tried to get behind us, and we dealt with that pretty well. When we needed a save, Brian [Rowe] came through.”
