D.C. United Head Coach Ben Olsen
On the effort of the team…
“I thought the effort was good. We were lacking some bodies after having an extra time game this week. All things considered, we’re happy with the tie. [Bill] Hamid makes a great save at the end, but after 30 minutes I thought we handled the game pretty well. Final piece is still a work in progress I think, but the midfield and back was pretty good for the rest of the game the second half. We felt comfortable. We’ve just got to keep pushing and find more ways to get shots, and get a little bit more dangerous in the attacking third. That’ll come with time and getting some guys back.”
On when he’ll get injured players back…
“My trainer is in the other room, that’s probably a better question for him. They all have different time frames, but we’ll get them back back one by one. Again, I was happy that we came here and defended well. Putting a zero up is very difficult here. Not only on a day like today, but historically. Any time you give that many set pieces up against Houston and you come out with a zero is a sign that your team has courage in its ability to win on the road and get points on the road, which we’ve proven through the season so far.”
On goalkeeper Bill Hamid’s sharpness…
“It’s always tough for me to judge Bill because I just expect greatness all the time. It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve seen it for the last few years.”
On the Dynamo under Wade Barrett’s coaching…
“I’m biased because I like Wade. I think he is a great guy, and I hope he is the coach of this team for years to come. I know he’s going to bring a commitment and energy that these fans have always appreciated in the Dynamo teams. But again, I’m biased because I like Wade. I also went down a similar path to what he’s going through right now, so I’m rooting for him.”
On how to approach the Dynamo…
“It’s all circumstantial, so you have to know who’s starting, what are your injury situations, etc. You have to factor each one, and then you have to factor who they have. It’s not that easy. The one thing you know with this group, playing any Houston Dynamo team, the service is going to be good and you’re going to have to deal with a lot of box defending, which was the case tonight. If you could hold up in there and beat men in the box, you have a good shot. On the day, offensively not a lot to say. Defensively, I thought we fared pretty well. I think that’s the common theme here. It’s always a game that you have to be a grown man to play in. They’re in your face. They’re physical and it’s what I’ve always admired about this organization.”
D.C. United defender Bobby Boswell
On returning to Houston and the shutout...
“For me, coming out of a break, it’s important to come out and start well, the second half of the season. There’s some history with me being a former player here but, when the whistle blows it’s more about getting a result and getting the job done. If anything, I’m just a little more used to the heat, the field, and the atmosphere than most guys. We can’t be upset with how it turned out.”
On goalkeeper Bill Hamid's late game saves...
“Yeah, Big Game Bill. He makes saves when we need him, he’s done that since I’ve been back with DC. It’s world class, it picks us up and shuts them down.”
D.C. United goalkeeper Bill Hamid...
On his big late game saves...
“The first one I just reacted, the second one was a header, I kept my spot, stayed, luckily I saved it.”
On the late game pressure...
“We expected it, it’s a difficult environment to play in, everyone knows about Houston and the difficulties coming in the middle of the year. Our back line did it extremely well, our guys dealing with (Dynamo F Will) Bruin, in the box he’s dangerous, he’s a banger, he likes to be physical, our center backs dealt with him extremely well, and our fullbacks covered them extremely well.”
On returning from injury...
"I felt a lot of pressure because I wanted to come back as soon as possible, and stake a claim for the Copa America roster, and when that didn't happen, for some reason I sat back and felt a lot off bricks come off my shoulders. I'm just happy I'm back in goal now, and trying to do my best.
D.C. United goalkeeper Tally Hall
On coming back to Houston...
“This city means a lot to me, these fans mean a lot to me, just to be able to come back and just be here was fun for me, obviously some amazing years of my life and my family’s life was here living in this city and it was a lot of fun for me to come back.”
On interim head coach Wade Barrett’s Dynamo...
“I think with Wade in charge you have that old attitude creeping back in, that old mentality, I think it’s fair to say that anyone who’s ever been in the organization and worked with Wade is pulling for him, I think everyone believes that he’s the guy that can be really good for the Dynamo, now and in the future. I know when I talk to other former Dynamo players, we’re all behind Wade, hoping that he can take this team and get them back to where they were previously.”
Dynamo Interim Head Coach Wade Barrett
On the game...
“I think we all feel a little bit disappointed not to come away with three points tonight, but what I’ve told the boys and I truly believe, at some point we are truly going to be devastated to not pick up points. I know points at home are a real premium, but I’ve asked the guys to be tough to play against. I’ve asked them to limit chances. I’ve asked them to make it so that every team that comes in here knows that it’s a battle from minute one to minute 90 whatever it’s going to be. We kept a shutout tonight. I’m proud of that. Other than maybe (United midfielder Luciano) Acosta has the one chance a little bit late, which I think we need to look at. For the most part, the guys were committed, they worked hard. We’ll get there. We were close. I tell ya, we were really close to getting that goal at the end. I thought the three subs did a good job. I thought they brought energy to the group. (midfielder Alex) Lima played 90 minutes on Wednesday. He came in and gave us good energy, good runs, he’s good on the ball. Boniek (Garcia) had a good night. He was close to making a couple things happen. We looked dangerous on set pieces all night. I’m proud of the effort. I’m proud of the shutout. We were just a little bit off tonight, but I know that’s going to come.”
On his plans for the team the rest of the season...
“Number one, I’ve talked about, with this group right here, with everyone that’s in a Dynamo shirt right now, I want us to raise our standard of performance. That is all across the board. It’s things we do in training every day. It’s things around the locker room. It’s the level of respect that we have for one another. We all have our own roles and responsibilities, but we all have to work together as a team. I’m asking for number one, hard work every single day in everything that you do. I’m asking for discipline in every single thing that you do, that means on the field and off the field. I’m asking for everybody to selflessly work toward a common goal. The guys have done an excellent job in a short amount of time of wrapping their head around those three things and applying them to everything that we do. We have things to work on, and we are where we are in the standings. I know there’s a lot of ground to make up. But if we work on those things every single day and we have that be our main focus, I truly believe between now and the end of the season that the results will be there.”
On halftime adjustments
“One of the things that we talked about in the buildup to this was trying to get, as soon as the ball broke down because D.C. can put good pressure the ball, playing the ball forward. As the game went on we were doing good when we spread the game out. When we won the ball and we had good width. We talked about kind of opening. And when we move the ball quickly, it didn’t have to be a killer pass, but when we won it on one side of the field and we move quickly to the other side we were finding some success. Where we actually do get width and maybe we have a little pass inside and then we were finding those channels in behind. Boniek (Garcia) had a couple good runs in there the first half. We found Will Bruin in a really good combination through there. So at halftime, we talked about just making that adjustment. Moving the ball a little bit quicker through midfield. Spreading them out and then trying to find little pockets of space. In the second half (Christian) ‘Chaco’ (Maidana), (DaMarcus) Beasley, Boniek, they had some good combinations while they were in there. When Alex Lima came in he had some good combinations. Leonel (Miranda) did a good job when he came in. So we found those little pockets. Like I said, sometimes were just a little bit off on what we were doing, but with time and with work and training I think we’ll get better at those things.”
On how the two weeks off affected the team...
“Doesn’t really matter. The break was there no matter what. I do think this is a long season. The guys know this is a tough season, especially here in Houston. So any time you get a little bit of an extended break like that I think is good. It’s been a hard push at the beginning of the season, and we’ve asked a lot of the guys. The results have been tough. So yeah, I think a couple days away is always good for the guys to get refreshed. I do think with the help of (Assistant Coach) Paul Caffrey, he does a really good job of paying attention to the work we do in training and making sure that when the guys came back in we didn’t ask too much and that they were ready heading into this week. I thought the balance in the lineup we had for the (Lamar Hunt U.S.) Open Cup game on Wednesday, which was very important for us to get a good result coming back from the break and advancing in that tournament, I really wanted to get a good result, we did that and we still had a group that was coming in relatively fresh for this game. The break was necessary. It was good. I think now we’ve got a good platform moving forward.”
On improving the attack moving forward...
“I’m going to keep focusing on being tough to play against, but from there, yea, we’ll have to look at what we do. We need to look at every opponent and see what they bring, what little adjustments we can make. Between (Assistant Coach) Paul Caffrey and (Assistant Coach) Paul Rogers, (Performance Analyst) Oliver Gage, we’ll all look at it and we’ll come up with a game plan. It might be the same formation. It might be something new. We might make little tweaks here and there to just try and get the most that we can while still being difficult to play against.”
Dynamo defender David Horst
On the play of the back line...
“It’s something we’ve been working on, being more disciplined. Not just as a back four, but as a whole group out there. I think you’ve really seen that here the last four or five games, starting in Vancouver, continuing through Dallas, to the Open Cup game until tonight. From (GK) Tyler (Deric) all the way forward we are discipline. We are compact and we’ve tough to break down. That’s going to take us a long way in this league. Tonight we didn’t get a goal, but we kept a zero. If we can keep keeping zeros, all we need is one goal per game and we can build off of that.”
On the scoring chance on the final play...
“We worked on set pieces all week. We knew coming in what holes we had to hit. I think (D) Raul (Rodriguez) did a great job tonight. He got on the end of quite a few balls. He got on that last one there and Hamid made a great save. Unfortunately, it came to my feet instead of my head, but I’ve got to be able to put that away at the end of the game like that. Going into Portland next week I think we’re going to work on set pieces again and I think that’s going to be a strength of ours going forward, and hopefully, we can put a few away.”
Houston midfielder Boniek Garcia
On the outcome of the game...
“It was a very complicated game. We had options but we just couldn’t put them away. We walk away with a point and that’s due to the defensive effort we put forth tonight. When we had the ball we tried to attack, but we will have to work harder to impose ourselves on the offensive side of the ball. We were missing that today but we are calm due to the great work we did as a team today.”
On how his role might change under interim head coach Wade Barrett...
“We trained well the whole week, I had an opportunity today to start. I’ve started a few games on the bench and Wade gave me the opportunity today and I wanted to take advantage on it. Thank God that it went well, we are just missing the full three points.”
On playing more minutes...
“I’m happy, I’m playing more minutes and I’ve played a larger role over the last four games. I hope to give my manager the confidence to put me in and I know that I have to work hard to do that. Wade is giving me an opportunity and I have to make the most of it.”
Houston midfielder Ricardo Clark
On the outcome of the game...
“A little disappointed that we didn’t get the win but also had a lot of positives – we didn’t give up any goals, we created some chances for ourselves especially late in the game that we should of capitalized off – but it is what it is. A point is still good but I think there are some positives and some negatives. Like I said, a point is always good but you want more.”
On what interim head coach Wade Barrett stressed going into this game...
“We wanted to be tough to play against, which I think we were. I think we accomplished that but this is a game of inches. If Mauro connects on that [shot] at the end where Hamid made a great save, then this is a whole different ballgame. We would be in here celebrating. That’s the game, we have a plan to move forward, we are pretty set with where we need to be. We just need to capitalize on the offensive part and I think once we do that we will be good to go.”
Houston defender DaMarcus Beasley
On the difference between this team’s approach under Wade Barrett...
“We are more compact. We train on it, we know how to play, we know how to press. That’s our way at home, being home we can take a little more chances with that. Right now, it’s about staying compact and getting points is a big thing. It’s unlucky that we didn’t get three points tonight, we had a lot of great chances. I thought we controlled the game for the most part. It’s still coming and like I said, it’s still young with Wade and for him to learn how to approach the players again but we are going to get there.”
On the upcoming game against Portland...
“There were some positive things in this game. (Interim head coach Wade Barrett) is the coach and he sees what he sees so if he wants to tinker with the lineup that’s his decision. We are just the players. We come in and train every week and hopefully try to make the starting lineup. That’s what is good about this team. Even the guys that aren’t starting, they work hard in training. We don’t have any sour apples in this team and that’s what we need going forward. If Wade does decide to change the team I know that the 11 guys that start are going to be ready to get three points."
Houston Dynamo midfielder Collen Warner
Overall thoughts on the game...
“The performance overall was pretty positive, it is unfortunate we weren’t able to convert some of the chances we had. They’re a tough side to play against and they put a lot of people behind the ball. They may pretty hard in the challenge but I thought we did well to exploit some of the wide spaces tonight and if we were a little bit more fortunate we would have gotten few goals.
