Reactions:
Real Salt Lake Head Coach Jason Kreis
On Olmes Garcia’s work ethic:
“Fantastic. It is so critical to the way that we play and the way that our forwards put in that type of effort to gain us ground. Even if they don’t win the ball, if they’re up there pressing defenders to play the ball over the end line, or over the sideline, now we’ve gained a ton of space. Hats off to all the forwards, really. I think they’re all working extremely hard and they’ve all had moments the past several weeks where they’ve been excellent. I think we’re in a good place at that position.”
On the halftime mood:
“You know it’s an interesting situation. I came into the locker room thinking I needed to tell my players to not let that [Donovan goal] be a momentum changer because it could be. To give a goal away such as that, at home, right before halftime can be a real killer. Then I walk in the locker room and they’re already saying it. The players here are so experienced and so tactically aware of situations that I don’t need to say it. So my halftime speech was about where we could get at LA better.”
Thoughts on the possession of the team in the second half:
“I think that the chance when Rogers crossed the ball to the back-post was their only real chance in the second half. I think our defenders were a bit more organized and bettered postured with things to not allow some of their players to get some space in between our midfield and our backline in the second half.”
On the approach to the game from the coaching staff:
“We take this hard-headed approach to every match that we play. We did have a pretty stern talk yesterday about not making any silly mistakes because the past two matches that the Galaxy has been here they won both of those matches because we gave them goals. We didn’t make the Galaxy earn their first goal in either of those matches. Just simple mental errors and I felt like if we cut that out and we could put ourselves in a very, very good place and make them and our opponents earn goals then we put ourselves in a real good place.”
On why the team is scoring so frequently now:
“I think it is mixture of a lot of things. First and foremost you have the confidence issue, the mental issue. We’re in the first half of the season and when you get towards the latter half of the season teams get really focused on defending and there’s not a lot of space to break teams down. There isn’t a lot of play in transition and everyone has a very defensive mindset. On the flipside of that, your own team gets very defensive and cautious so I think the number of players involved in the attacks was the only difference that I see. I see when we have Ned Grabavoy, Sebastian Velasquez and Javier Morales involved in not some of the attacks but all of the attacks and Khari Stephenson on the outside of the diamond and an outside back getting forward in all the attacks, that’s when we create the most chances each game for me. It’s a numbers game for me and numbers mean commitments because there is a lot of ground to cover.”
On the potential of Garcia:
“First and foremost it’s how hungry he is. You can tell that this is a kid who really wants to do well and take the next step in his career and he’s been given a terrific opportunity to do that and I think that if he continues to show that sort of hunger and that sort of desire, then he has all the tools. He’s an excellent dribbler, excellent finisher, excellent striker of the ball, excellent with his head, excellent pace and excellent size. He’s got it all so for me the only question mark for me would be his desire and right now he’s showing that by the boat loads.”
Thoughts about Garth Lagerwey’s comments on RSL not beating marquee teams:
“He is right and I was thinking about that myself. You know when we’ve played bigger opponents, the Galaxy, Montreal, we haven’t gotten a convincing result against those types of opponents. FC Dallas as well, so this I think could be another step forward with our confidence.”
Los Angeles Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena
On his quick, first-take reaction to the game:
“They got the goal at the end, and that made the difference.”
On the performance of the LA defense, which has now given up eight goals in the last two games:
“I don’t think our defense was that bad tonight. Certainly the second goal was the difference, and the third goal was a result of us pushing forward.”
On the team’s recent road trip:
“We’ve been travelling all over the country, so it’ll be good for our guys to get their legs back.”
On Marcelo Sarvas’ yellow card in the second half:
“We’re going to ask the referee to re-evaluate that, because I think he missed that play. Hopefully they have the intelligence to look at that play and take away the card.”
