United head coach Ben Olsen
On three wins in a row…
“It helps in every aspect around the club. It’s been a tough year, we’ve made some changes and you can see there’s some real quality with the players we brought in. But also, the other guys that have been on the field with those players have played well over the last two weeks.”
On learning curve for new players…
“Good soccer players find it easy to play with other good soccer players. That’s always been the case. You saw it right away in the first half. Zoltán [Stieber] is gifted and the game comes easy to him. Guys like Lucho [Acosta] and Paul [Arriola] find it easy to play with guys of that caliber.”
On Lucho’s energy level…
“He’s energized. Wins and new players around you can do that to a player. I’ve talked to him about his responsibilities for this group as an influential player on the field and off the field… His ability to dig in and do the little things is something that the other guys see and follow. He’s never been relied on as heavily throughout his professional career. He's played a lot of minutes and I did not think he could play with that type of energy and spirit over 90 minutes today because of the effort he put in on Wednesday in Colorado. But that’s what you need and I think his attitude is contagious to the players around him when he does that.”
On Zoltán Stieber’s first game…
“We had Zoltán playing anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes tonight. He looked like he was still moving well so it was a judgement call to push him. We didn’t know down the stretch which guys would start to get fatigued because of all the minutes over the last week but Zoltán's fitness levels are good.”
United midfielder Lloyd Sam
On how it feels after a win…
“It’s a hundred times better. Anytime you get three points, you have the best feeling after the game. So, three in a row now, everyone’s going to be laughing and joking now. … It’s a good feeling. I mean, we kind of put ourselves in a bad situation or whatever, so it’s still going to be tough but we’re doing the right thing right now.
On the goal…
“I knew there were big guys in [the box], so I thought, ‘Let me put it in with some air on it.’ Kofi kept it alive and Lucho came back in and scored on the other end.”
On Lucho’s energy level…
“There’s been a real difference in him. He’s been putting some real work in for the team, chasing things down for the whole game. When he’s playing like that, it lifts everyone.”
On the new players in the midfield…
“The competition has helped everything. We just won three games in a row. It speaks for itself really.”
United defender Jalen Robinson
On chemistry at the back…
“I have kind of built up a chemistry with Kofi [Opare] throughout the years and we’ve been together for three and a half, four years now. So, we have that type of confidence together. I’m just confident to be around those guys. It’s easy when you come into the game, it’s a swagger we have, it’s a confidence we have.”
On chances of making the playoffs…
“I still say there’s a chance to make the playoffs, obviously. Each game, each day, you got to get better. … It’s important to come in here with that right mentality. So, we want to get these points and hopefully see where that takes us.”
United midfielder Marcelo Sarvas
On the team feeling now versus two weeks ago…
“You can see today in the game, the confidence, the soccer was there. We were able to create a lot of chances and control the game. You could see every player take care of the ball, not just kick the ball away. Of course, when you get three wins and you come to a moment like this, it seems like everything is good.”
On Acosta's energy level over the last three games…
“People are different in every part of the world. We, from South America, we feel the soccer and if it’s not going well, it seems like our personal life is not doing well. He’s no different. … When you start to win, everything changes. Everything changes at home, everything changes at the club and it’s reflected on the field.”
On the new players…
“They are good players. They’ve been in soccer for a while and when they came they knew we were in last position. They knew what we needed. You’re not coming to a team that’s in first place and a team were everything is running perfectly. … They came with the right mentality: ‘For us, it’s zero. We start right now.’ I think they are pieces that complement what we need. … So, it’s working. Everything is working well and they are a big part of this.”
New England Revolution head coach Jay Heaps
On the overall result…
“Frustrating is the best word. We just didn’t have enough chances. I think we started the game pretty well—we didn’t seem to stop really trying to play and unfortunately, I think we can be better and we just weren’t.”
On United making the game difficult…
“You have to credit them—obviously, they did a nice job of making it difficult. They don’t give a lot of space, they win a lot of the balls in the midfield…I think we did have a couple of chances where if we had been a little bit cleaner on the pass or a bit better on the run, I think we would have had more chances--we just didn’t take enough risks. Early in the game, it was a little bit more in our favor, but once they got the goal…obviously, they didn’t have a ton of chances up to that point…but once they had the goal, we had to open up a bit and we had a couple of chances, but just not enough.”
On Luciano Acosta’s goal…
“I haven’t seen it all the way, but I felt like we did a nice job defending on the first part of that set piece—we tracked it down in the corner to defend and once the ball went across, we didn’t stay with the run and that’s rule number one…once you go out, you’ve got to stay with the runners coming back across and I don’t know who it is, but we’re going to go back and look at it on the film.”
New England Revolution defender Je-Vaughn Watson
On the overall result…
“I think we came out here to win the game because you know our position in the standings and we have to go out there and win, so to come here and give away our three points is not good and if you’re going to give away three points, you have to give it away better than that. We didn’t fight as much—the desire was not there for us and we have to do a search of ourselves and come next game, we have to start winning games.”
On what lacked in tonight’s loss…
“I think it was desire, because we’re getting it in there, we’re getting chances and every game we’re scoring except for this one, so I think we need to be mentally strong. Even though we’re at the bottom of the table, we can still make the playoffs, so we have to keep that in the back of our heads because on paper we’re a good team, but we have to go out there and show it. Every day, we are saying ‘next game,’ ‘next game,’ but there aren't many games now, so we need to start winning to get to the playoffs.”
On Acosta’s goal…
“I think it’s all boiling down to just following your guy, so it was a good goal anyway, but we need to follow our guy and track our guy in the box. Otherwise, they’d probably get a couple of half chances and Cody [Cropper] would come up big, so if they didn’t score that, I think we could walk out of here with a point and a point would be better than a loss.”
On the road ahead and getting points…
“We’ve got nine games left and we’ve got to win every game at home and we have to go away and start getting points…if you want to win trophies, you have to make it to the playoffs like champion teams. We have good players, but we have to stop saying we’re good players and go up and show it because the coach is doing what he can—we prepare well, everything he tells us before the games is what we face in the games, so if we’re not going to do the work, we should just tell the next guy to step up.”
