Sigi Schmid – Sounders FC Head Coach
(On the offensive attack…) “I thought we had some chances going forward. I didn’t think the first 25 minutes was very good. I thought they were better than us in the first 25 minutes. After that I felt we took hold of more of the game. With their goal in the second half I felt there was a multitude of things that happened in the goal against us, then we had some more chances going the other way. We took some rests and left ourselves a little more open to the counter, and we’re playing against a team that was pretty bunkered in and was trying to play out of the counter themselves. We got around them a bit on the right with DeAndre [Yedlin] attacking, but we didn’t get enough width on the left side of the field.”
(On not creating enough chances…) “I just don’t think we are getting width at the right times. There are teams that are packing in the middle and then we are forced to play into the middle when maybe we don’t want to. I think we did a good job at times-when you look at the crosses we hit they come from the right-hand side of the field with DeAndre, later Brad Evans getting in there…Everything is just quality service at the right times. It’s just letting us down. Evans gets in once really well in the second half, and misses the cross as it’s coming across. Those are the things, the final decisions. We make a mistake, we get punished-that’s been a pretty common theme. We just got to clean up the chances that are created. We aren’t creating clean chances.”
(On tonight’s lineup…) “Just resting people. Evans thought he was better, but we felt it would be too much to push him too much this early. [Clint] Dempsey has been going all year and we need to find a couple breaks here and there. I thought he came on and did some good things for us. [Djimi] Traore was just rested and Leo Gonzalez isn’t in a state where he can play three games in a week.”
(On Gonzalo Pineda’s recovery…) “[He is] doing better. He suffered a little bit of an ankle injury during regen, but he felt a lot better and should be able to jog and run.”
(On finding gaps in the defense…) “I thought it was OK. I thought overall finding gaps and playing through those gaps is something we aren’t doing well right now. You saw the good ball played in by [Obafemi Martins], and [Chad] Barrett finishes. There’s not enough of those balls coming in from the rest of the midfielders…That’s what our forwards are in need of.”
(On playing behind the defense…) “I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job of that lately…You’ve got to get the ball over and behind the defense. Hopefully that is something we will work during training.”
(On generating scoring opportunities…) “I don’t think it’s been a problem for us in a long time. I think that’s been a problem for us over the last four or five games. I thought we were doing better much earlier in the season and we got to get back to doing that.”
(On how to approach a slump…) “You’ve just got to stay positive. You’ve got to stay positive and work for each other. You’ve got to bring the right attitude to games and practice every day and there’s enough quality there for us to get out of it, but we’ve got to get positive.”
(On Barrett’s 50th career goal…) “Congratulations to Chad. I think that’s his sixth goal this year. He’s had a very good season for us getting goals off the bench and getting goals in starting situations. Chad’s done very well.”
(On the third draw of the season…) “You look at our record and we probably have tied the least amount of times in the league. [We would] rather have a win, but rather not have a loss.”
(On not getting the win…) “It was disappointing. The guys are disappointed because they really wanted to come out with a win today.”
Chad Barrett – Sounders FC Forward
(On if the draw feels like a loss…) “Yeah, definitely. You know San Jose treats it like a win, so we have to treat it like a loss. You use home games in this league to really get out of slumps, help yourself get started, and it would have been great to win because we have a tough game down in Portland. They had kind of a depleted team and you know they just wanted a tie-that’s all they were really going for. The goal was really unlucky in a lot of different parts. Once we got the lead, I thought we were going to carry it out for three points.”
(On scoring his 50th career goal…) “It was great for me individually. Great ball by Oba, good finish. It was great to get the 50th, but that’s something you think about at the end of your career. Right now, three points is really all you want.”
(On what Obafemi Martins brought to the attack…) “Everything he always does. He’s quick, he’s strong, he’s fast. He creates a lot, he draws a lot of attention, which leaves me open. Like I said, he played a great through ball, had a bunch of unlucky chances that didn’t fall for him. I would have loved to see one of his shots go in, but they packed the box and Busch made some great saves—congrats to them.”
(On the team getting 24 shots…) “It’s a testament to Busch. He did a great job. I thought their defense did a great job. They pretty much did exactly what they’ve been doing this entire year-they put eight in the box and put it to us to get it out wide and put crosses in. I think that we could have found the wings a little bit more and put some crosses in-because it seemed like they were really struggling on those-and pounced on something coming from the top of the box. For whatever reason it just didn’t go in. It wasn’t with us today and we got the tie.”
Clint Dempsey – Sounders FC Midfielder
(On where the offense needs to improve…) “When you watch the game tonight, we got in some good positions. We got in some good crosses, some bad crosses-but you have to have better quality in the final third if you want to have a better end product, so we just need more quality in the final third.”
(On how he feels…) “Feeling tired. I’ve been going nonstop since December, really, so that’s why I rested today. [I am] trying to get my legs back under me to try to feel a little more energized and hopefully we can find a way to manage that and get back to feeling good again.”
(On playing 20 minutes tonight…) “It’s rest. Ninety minutes takes a lot of you. It’s just been a balance of trying to lighten the load during training sessions and minutes in games because games on turf take a lot out of you. Well games, period, take a lot out of you, but especially on turf. So I try to manage that load so I can be fresh, get my legs back, and be fresh until the end of the season.”
