Toronto FC 2-0 Columbus Crew
YAN NELSEN – HEAD COACH, TORONTO FC
On executing the game plan:
I thought the guys did a great job especially playing such a good team away from home. It’s extremely hard to win away from home in this League and we had a quite a few injuries and quite a few guys who hadn’t even played pre-season let alone League minutes. You know, Jackson had probably the best game I’ve ever seen him play. I just thought he was amazing and everybody else was great too. It was just a very hardened professional away performance.
On amount of injuries and missing players:
We had about five or six of guys carrying strains and it was pretty much who was the most injured had to come off. It wasn’t pretty but it was such a hardened kind of performance with backs against the wall even the guys that guys that were playing were having trouble trying to run. I couldn’t be prouder of the guys. We know where our weaknesses are and we know our strengths. We know we have to dig deep we have to get guys we have to get experience.
On using fans’ doubts as motivation:
No, I don’t use that as motivation because you don’t really listen to anything bad when you’re thinking good. We have our own goals. We knew if we were disciplined and if we were hardened, we could stop them. Of course there are going to be things we can improve on considering the absences that we’ve had and I think the lack of playing time that the whole squad has had to give up is hard.
On the start of season:
It’s what I said before, it’s going to be a rollercoaster ride before the team finds itself and we grow together and learn about each other and where our strengths and our weaknesses are. We learned from Real Salt Lake and we’re going to have more lessons that we are going to learn from. What I like about these guys is that they listen and work hard and their trying to put into practice what we need to work on. There is going to be more instances that we’re going to learn from and we’re going to be criticized, we just have to keep our feet on the ground and keep working hard.
