D.C. United head coach Ben Olsen
On his takeaways from the match…
“It was a good old-fashioned Atlantic Cup… a dust-up, certainly in the first half. The conditions were, after the break, pretty poor and it became a game about seconds and going route one. But I thought it was overall a pretty good first half. We started very bright, a first good nine minutes, then the break came, which I think benefitted them a little more than us, but again, I still think the first half was pretty good. We had a couple of chances to be at least one, maybe two up in the first half, and those are important. In the second half, they came out and the conditions were a little better, and some of their qualities stood out, in particular Sacha Kljestan, who was very good. They were a better team for a good 20 minutes, but then it changed, and we took the rest of the game. Our energy rose and down the stretch, we were unlucky to not get more than one point.”
On coming back but only getting a draw…
“It’s a tough balance. There’s not much you can do about it [the weather], they capitalized on it, and we didn't capitalize on some of the plays on the other end. It was gutsy for us to battle back from down 2-0, that’s for sure. But again, we want more. We want to push for three points, in particular at home, so I have mixed feelings.”
On his feelings about the team’s performance over the last four home matches…
“I think we’ve come a long way over four games and I really like this team. I like our pieces, I like the way we play, and I like the chances we’re creating over the course of these four games. I don’t like having six points...we should have more than six points, but we don’t. We go to Montreal in two days, so we don’t have time to worry about what could have been. We’re also unbeaten in a while, and that’s not easy to do in this league either. There’s no reason why we can’t be a playoff team, but we have to pick up some points now on the road in a busy stretch. We’re going to need everyone over the next six days, but we’re looking forward to it.”
On how playing Montreal a few weeks ago affects the turnaround…
“They might change four or five guys because of their loss and the quick turnover, so we have a pretty good idea about them. We have one less day of rest which isn’t ideal. I think Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday’s are [tough]. It tests your depth, and I’m looking forward to seeing the guys on the field on Wednesday.”
D.C. United defender Steve Birnbaum
On the comeback…
“To come back from 2-0 is always good. I think that our team is still a little disappointed that we didn’t get the win. It’s positive to come back from 2-0 to tie, so we’ll take it."
On the corner kick that resulted in a goal…
“I couldn’t get enough power to get on the frame-side…Just trying to nod it back across, and Pat (Mullins) had a great finish on it. He’s been good for us, and he had a great game today, so I’m happy he got the goal."
On the four-game homestand…
“I mean, we didn’t lose a game, but we also didn’t win as many as we wanted to. So it’s frustrating in the sense that we’ve got to finish games out better. It’s tough. We’ll take some of these ties and move forward.”
On the rest of the season…
“I think we’ve had some good performances. I think there’s a lot of positives coming out of that [today], and hopefully we can carry that into the Montreal game.”
D.C. United midfielder Patrick Nyarko
On the outcome of the match…
“The guys saved each other, they showed character, but that’s not what we wanted. We wanted all three points. In that sense, it’s disappointing. But if we can keep going like that and eliminate the little mistakes, finish our chances, we get out of here with a win. I think we came out fantastic in our game plan; guys were battling. There were a couple of mistakes like not finishing chances and giving up a soft goal kind of cost us two points in this game. But we’ll take it and use it as motivation.”
D.C. United midfielder Marcelo Sarvas
On the result…
“I think it’s good to show the strength of the team and we did enough to win this game. But I think overall, it was a very good performance from the team.”
On the crowd after scoring the penalty kick…
“That’s the importance to have the people here…It’s when you feel tired, when you need to come back, you feel that energy. Everyone pushing. We say that the fans are the twelfth player on the field, so I think that after the first goal, we were able to earn a tie.”
D.C. United midfielder Lloyd Sam
On playing against his former team…
“It really wasn’t as crazy as you’d think. I’ve seen them on T.V. I guess I know all those guys, but it really wasn’t that crazy. I’ve thought about it, and now it’s happened…You play against them in training, so you’re playing against the same players. You just know what you’re like. It was a cool experience I guess…It was good that we got back into the game and got two…I wouldn’t have been happy with losing that game. The way we started and then had the break, I felt like conditions are never going to suit the home team at that point, it’s always going to suit the away team.”
On the motivating factor after going down 2-0...
“I think that the penalty incident got us going. Obviously, there was a belief that we could get another one, and then we got that one. It would have been nice to get one more, but we’ll take the point considering we were 2-0 down.”
On the homestand…
“We wanted more wins…but at least we didn’t lose the game. You’ve got to win your home games if you’re trying to do anything in this league. And we didn’t do that.”
New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch
On only getting one point from road games...
"It’s tough. On one level it’s a real gutsy, hard, competitive, strong performance and if you can walk away with three points you’d feel good about how we played, but the fact that we managed to let them back in has everybody searching for answers. You can either look hard and talk about all the little details and try to figure out exactly how to put your finger on it, but I feel like every game is something different. Tonight, we give them a penalty, it’s a set piece, which we’ve been really good on set pieces all year, it’s a mentality of, 'here we go again'. My question as the coach is, 'how do I use my subs? How do I encourage a mentality? How much anxiety do I want to put into it versus how much do I believe that it’s coming and that we’re going to hit a turning point?'"
On giving up leads being a mentality...
"It’s almost entirely mental. It’s about the details. What I said to them is that until 2-0 we were winning so many battles and foot races and aerial duels and managing to find Sacha [Kljestan] so he can put a play together in their end. Then they flipped a switch and got more aggressive, and we stopped winning those battles. So how much of it is them and how much of it is us? You have to give them some credit, but it’s a trend that we’ve seen with us and we’ve got to figure out how to address it."
On his substitution decisions...
"With both Omar and Danny, we know they’re both quality players…it’s also not a day for soccer, it’s a day for a brawl. Trying to throw them into a game like that and not knowing what to expect, we want to set those guys up to succeed. That being said, I thought when we put Danny in, he helped the game a lot and actually played well. Could I have used more subs? Could I have used them earlier? Maybe that’s the case but I thought we had the guys on the field that could get the job done."
On the discussion in the locker room during rain delay...
"The main thing I said is that I didn’t think we were up for the competitive challenge. D.C. started the game winning so many of the little battles and I reminded them that this is what the game was going to be, especially on a wet day. I had to remind them that last time we came down here we had a terrible match and that I can cheerlead all I want, but we need them to understand internally how to handle that."
New York Red Bulls midfielder Sacha Kljestan
On having the lead in the second half…
“Yeah, it's another tough result to swallow because--for the most part--we gave them a difficult game. With bad circumstances, we did what we had to do and they played pretty well. It’s just kind of breaking our backs right now to give up these leads. We just need one game where we grind out a road result to give us that relief again that when we take the lead we are able to hold it. Obviously, a penalty makes a big difference in the momentum of the game and we weren’t able to cope with it right after that."
On the field conditions…
“The field got a little bit better as the game went on, but definitely the beginning of the re-start of the game was difficult because you almost had to chip passes to each other because they weren’t going to roll on the ground. I think both teams handled it well. We knew what was at stake and knew what the conditions were like and it was just a battle. So both teams battled pretty hard and in the end a tie is probably better because they were attacking a lot.”
On balancing the team mood…
“Yeah, it’s got to be a balance. We can’t get too down because we know we have gone ten games unbeaten. We’re on a good run. The mood of the team should stay good. On the other hand, we're extremely disappointed because if we get to the playoffs and we do something like this, we’re going to be out. So we have to figure this out sooner than later.”
On if this rivalry has lost any luster because of NYCFC…
“No, because if you go speak to any one of the guys in our supporters groups and they will still tell you that D.C. is enemy number one. And so we know how much this game means to them, it means a lot to us as well. We want to win the season series so we know that we have another game against them at home and we are going to take that one very seriously because they are doing their best to keep up the standings but we want to keep pushing them down and keep moving ourselves towards the top.”
New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles
On how he balances the emotions right now…
“It’s nice that the unbeaten streak is still there but the frustration is very real. If you look at the last three games, we are up 2-0 on LA and Philadelphia. It’s just frustrating. It’s a mentality. I’m confident in this group of guys that, with time that’s left with the season, not only will we continue on this but we will get better because at the end of the day, if we want accomplish the goals that we hope to accomplish we have to win on the road.”
On what the key is to correcting that mentality…
“I don’t know. If I knew we would have done it already. It’s just one of those things that just defensively we’re talking, we have to personify this kind of confidence that’s going to permeate through this entire team. And if we can do that I think not only is it going to be a huge help, but it’s a step in the right direction. How to do that, I’m not entirely sure but I have a lot of belief in the guys that are in front of me and a lot of belief in the guys on the bench, that no matter who is there we are going to get the job done and unfortunately we got it half done today.
On D.C.’s tactics being direct…
“This is the type of way that they play. They are very good at winning second balls, creating chances and turnovers, and that is exactly what happened to us tonight. We let in two set pieces. I was hoping he’d step up because I would have blocked that. But, at the end of the day, he forced a mistake out of us and they are the type of team that has the spirit and the feistiness to get back in it and that’s what they did today so it was a good point on their end.”
On Royer’s MLS debut…
“He’s got a great shot, he’s very attack-minded so he is going to be huge for us going forward. It’s nice for him to be able to get some minutes. We have high expectations for him.”
