D.C. United Head Coach Ben Olsen
On if he had planned to put Fabián Espíndola in the game to start the second half:
He was going to be the first sub, but I might have held off a little bit in the second half if the game wasn’t what it was in the first half. The first half wasn’t good enough. I don’t think we had any good performances, besides Andrew, in the first half. It’s been happening too much lately and it’s been addressed; but the quality and energy in the first half wasn’t good enough. Fortunately, we had Fabi [Espíndola] in the bag. He came in and completely changed our whole mentality. He brought quality and energy, and that’s contagious.
On Jairo Arrieta's and Fabián Espíndola’s performance together in the second half:
I think everybody plays better when Fabi [Espíndola] comes on the field. I’m very happy for Jairo. I didn’t think he had a great first half. Some of that is the product of what’s around him; but again when you add quality to the team other guys start to look better.
On what he can attribute Jairo Arrieta already matching his goal total from all of last season:
Good coaching (laughs). Jairo can score goals. He’s done it throughout his career. He’s a true number nine and we needed that. If you see him play he really, really likes scoring goals. So I’m happy he’s doing it for us.
On the back lines performance:
[Chris] Korb was a late scratch so we had to scramble and we went with Steve [Birnbaum]. I thought he did fine, besides the hand ball. It’s not easy to put a guy in a new position for the first time and I thought overall he did pretty well. It’s good to know that we can use that if we get in to trouble.
On the status of the injured players:
Bill has had a few knocks that he’s been playing through for a while, and it got to a point where we thought it was best to give him a rest and get him ready for the weekend. Taylor [Kemp] is day to day, [Chris] Korb is day to day, [Chris] Pontius is day to day; all these guys we have to evaluate over the next day or two and see if its makes sense to put them in a game. We’re not going to risk getting them re-injured so we will continue to use new guys and make sure we are as fresh as we can be to try to get results. But, we have to start putting better performances together as a whole. The tale of two halves stuff is getting old.
On if it’s hard to get the message across that the team needs to start better when they have gotten away with it:
Yea, I think that’s a fair part. We have gotten away with it the last two games, and again you’re not always going to get away with it. But, we have been.
On Dykstra’s performance in goal:
The kick save was great. It comes at a crucial time in the game, and it’s a big save. I thought he was great all night. The guys feel very comfortable with him behind them. He saves the PK and makes the save at 2-1 that keeps the lead.
On if there is relief after all these games and new lineups to score a few goals:
Yeah, absolutely. And you have to add that in to this equation because you’re throwing guys in to new positions; it’s been tough for them. It’s not always going to look great, but I give them credit because they continue to find ways to get results. That’s the toughest thing to do in this league, to find ways to get results. That group did it again tonight, but I’m still a little disappointed in the overall picture of the last two games. It’s great to get the six points but we got to sort it out to where we are playing 90 minutes like we have been in the second half.
On Conor Doyle’s performance and his role over the last few games:
I think he’s taking advantage of the minutes he’s getting, and he always does whether it’s five or ten minutes to kill off a game or whether he’s starting. And now that he’s getting back-to-back games he’s finding more of a rhythm. I think Conor is increasingly getting more comfortable and becoming more of a threat. We all know how tough it is to get that first goal under your belt and I’m happy he got that tonight.
D.C. United Forward Jairo Arrieta:
On the introduction of Espíndola in the second half:
When Fabián came in, our attack was instantly better. I have a good understanding with him. I think Fabián, you guys all know the quality he has. His movement is phenomenal, and like I said, we have a great understanding. I feel comfortable with him and I hope to keep pairing up with him and hopefully the team will benefit.
On the team’s performance in the second half:
Our attitude in the second half was the one that the coaching staff has been instilling in us all week. The second half was very different than the first - we over-complicated things in the first half. I think we gifted them control of the ball all half. We came into the second half with a better attitude, more desire to take it to Chicago, and that’s obviously what happened.
On his goals:
I think those two goals are essential for my confidence, and were obviously a big lift for the team. Again, I think we understood what our coaching staff wanted out of us tonight, and in the second half we were able to execute that plan.
D.C. United goalkeeper Andrew Dykstra
On his save in the second half:
You get across the goal and you stay big and that’s exactly what it is. It’s about just standing up and keeping the goal and big saves.
On having Espíndola back on the field:
He’s great. You get him the ball, and he can hold it up. He’s very good with his feet and smart enough to play with the other guys. It’s nothing we haven’t seen in practice but it was nice to have him in there. It was good.
On Espíndola’s return and impact on the team:
I attribute it to everybody. I think there was an obvious need for some energy in the second half that everybody kind of felt. I think that’s the first thing but Fabi definitely helped. He’s one of our MVP’s. That’s why they give him the money that they do. He’s earned it and he’s a great player. He has unbelievable feet and to change the game like that is awesome.
D.C. United Defender Kofi Opare:
On the difference between the first and second half:
Obviously the first half started a little slow. It looked a little lethargic I thought. The second half we, at half time, had time to regroup and adjust some things tactically and I think we made some minor changes that in the second half we implemented. Obviously with the addition of Fabi definitely helped us. Him, Davy, they definitely made a difference when they came on. Also, Facundo as well.
On Espíndola’s impact on the field:
The thing is with him he is just able to lure two more players because he’s that good, and when he does that it creates space for other players and he has that ability to pick out guys with passes to create scoring opportunities like he did tonight. That’s what we expect from Fabi and he also instills a sense of confidence to the team when he is on the field. We know he can hold the ball, keep it for us and create for us.
On the 15-20 minute stretch when United scored:
I think our confidence definitely picked up a notch and you could tell that there was understanding between Fabi and Jairo and Markus, Perry, Doyle. You can just see it on the field unfold. That’s something we expect from Fabi. He’s been off for a while but another part he brings and tonight he seemed as if he hadn’t missed a step at all. So it’s definitely good to have him on the bench.
Chicago Fire Head Coach Frank Yallop
On what he saw in the first half:
If you look at the way we played it was very good and basically at half time it’s more of the same. I knew they were going to change the game with putting players on. Espíndola comes on and makes a difference but we seemed to stop playing. You’ve got to credit D.C. for the forceful play but we’ve got to do better at defending and handling situations. I said they’re going to change it up and get at you so we better be ready for it and we’ve got to adjust our game and play quicker or whatever it is and when we get a chance to punish them on the break, best do it so it’s disappointing were 1-0 up and lose 3-1 away from home. You know it’s never a good feeling at all.
On the team’s first goal:
It was a great goal for us. Good early ball by Harry, great run by Quincy, good early ball by Quincy and a good finish by David but that wasn’t the issue. For whatever reason we stopped playing in a certain part in the game and started trying to soak up pressure when we can’t do that. We were naïve a little bit tonight I think in the big picture and D.C. United kept going and were stronger than us. The set play goal was awful to concede. I haven’t seen the goals, so I have to look at them again on tape but it’s never good to concede three goals at home or away but especially when you’re away and one goal up.
On the midweek road games and the challenges that brings:
Yeah I mean there are no excuses though, we’re professionals, for 45 minutes we were fine. I thought we played probably our best stuff away from home. It was good, it was clean. Without getting the second goal, Jeff missed penalty kick but obviously it maybe wouldn’t have mattered because right afterwards we scored anyway. For us conceding three goals in any match is not good so we’ve got to look at it again, dig deep and get ready for Saturday’s game because it’s a big game for us.
On what he takes away from this game heading in to Saturday:
We’ve got to take away decent play in the first half, good goal by us but we’ve got to look at the tape and figure out what went wrong in the second half. It was forty minutes, three goals conceded which is not good. I think one of them was a bit of a ricochet but it doesn’t matter, we’ve got to be able to clear the ball. We’ve got to defend a lot better than that. I made some changes to the lineup but I don’t think that made a difference to the result and I think we should have done better than that to get a result.
Chicago Fire Goalkeeper Jon Busch
On his impressions on the game:
The first half they didn’t have too many looks. They were organized defensively and had some good chances on the offensive side. They had the one early shot and that was about it. Second half they stepped it up a gear and unfortunately we couldn’t keep up with it. They took over the second half and we couldn’t deal with it.
On what he took away from the game:
It’s the same thing we’ve been saying all season, we have halves that are good and we have halves that aren’t good. The first half was a real positive. Second half we weren’t sharp, we weren’t keeping the ball when we should and we weren’t dynamic enough. We got a little lackadaisical in the back and good teams will punish you. D.C. United is a good team, they’re at the top of the table for a reason and they showed it tonight.
On the difficulties of the midweek game:
There’s no excuses. Everybody’s got to play midweek games at some point in the season. We came out with the right mentality just didn’t do it for 90 minutes and we’ve got to pick ourselves up now and get ready for Saturday. This is how the league goes and you just get on with it. You have midweek games, you’ve got bunches where you’ve got to pick up points.
Chicago Fire Forward David Accam
On the overall reaction to the game:
For me, I think we played a good team today. So far this season this is the best team we played and it showed in that second half. Even though we were much better in the first half, we didn’t keep the tempo up and they were much better than us in the second half.
On the differences in the second half:
I think they wanted it more than us in the second half and that’s the only difference. You can see the pressure they gave us and they were hungry to win the game.
On his goal:
For me, I know whenever the ball is out wide then I need to get in the box. Quincy was smart enough to see me, to give me the first time pass to score.
On what he takes in to the next game against Orlando:
How we played in the first half. There was so much positive in the first half and we have to forget about the scores today and concentrate on the next game on Saturday. We should play the way we played in the first half and we should win on Saturday.
