The Seattle Sounders continued their unbeaten streak to start the season with a 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake Saturday night at CenturyLink Field. The Rave Green walked away from the pitch with a win but feeling unsatisfied after scoring the opening goal in the 18th minute and unable to generate a single shot on goal in the second half.
POST-MATCH QUOTES: SOUNDERS FC 1 – REAL SALT LAKE 0
SATURDAY, APRIL 6, 2019
SOUNDERS FC HEAD COACH BRIAN SCHMETZER
On the team’s bend but don’t break mentality this game:
“Clean sheets are always good, it gaurentees you points. I think over the course of time this club has always been a pretty good defensive club. It starts with the work that Tommy does with the goalkeeping crew. You know we have been fortunate to have Román Torres, Kim Kee-hee, Chad Marshall, Nouhou. We’ve had pretty good players. Commitment to defend, starting with the guys up front, I thought Will [Bruin] did a good job today in his time out on the field. Not just on the attacking end, starting defensively. You guys saw the amount of ground that Nico [Loderio] covers on a game by game basis. It’s hard to play against a guy like that who is always chasing you down. I think they are committed.”
On challenge for Will Bruin to get the start tonight:
“I didn’t think there was much challenge at all. Tonight, I just said it, I thought Will did a great job. He was active inside the box, he had a few shots on goal. A couple of times we missed him when he was open. Will is a little different than Raul [Ruidiaz]. He’s good in the air and he’s a bigger body. Will sometimes puts himself in good positions inside the box, we just didn’t see him. Overall I thought he was very good. It’s a shame he wasn’t rewarded with a goal.”
On Cristian Roldan’s opportunities this game:
“Cristian got around the corner quite a few times. I think Jordan [Morris] wishes he got that ball back when Cristian nicked the ball off the guy on the touch line. When Cristian goes forward like that we actually like doing that because he is goal dangerous.”
SOUNDERS FC GOALKEEPER STEFAN FREI
Overall thoughts on the game:
“Good, we got three points, and we maintained a shutout at home. But the rest not too happy, honestly, I think we need to put this team away. To let them linger on and hope and chances is something we have to fix. Again, great that we got three points and keep it going but lots to do better in this game.”
On what’s missing from scoring more goals:
“I think at the beginning it’s the final pass and a little bit of patience at time and waiting so that window to hit the final pass is a bit bigger. But especially second half there’s a lot of sloppiness on the field, a lot of build up and not being able to maintain possession. Stupid little mistakes like balls slipping under our feet and giving up possession, those are frustrating things. Those little stupid errors that are turnovers.”
On RSL’s chance in the 70th minute:
“A long and hopeful ball and trying to make Brad [Smith] aware that there’s a guy behind him and yell away to let him know that I wasn’t coming and that I had to somehow deal with it and honestly don’t really know how the ball squirts into the perfect position for him to make a run on it, but that’s all it takes, right? If we are sitting comfortable at two or three nil maybe they aren’t even pushing as hard. But that could be costly when we let costly when we let teams linger on.”
SOUNDERS FC DEFENDER BRAD SMITH
On the overall thoughts of the match:
“It was a grind, but it was good to be back in front of the home fans. Felt like we were away for a while with the international break and the result in Vancouver obviously didn’t go our way so to come back and have a good performance. I thought we dominated the first half, kind of dipped off in the second half. I don’t really know what happened or how to explain it but you have to grind the results out and we got the clean sheet and it’s three points at the end of the day. Good result.”
On not getting more goals:
“It’s just little half chances. We had a lot in Vancouver as well. It’s difficult but it happens in futbol sometimes. You have to take those chances when you get it. Nico [Loderio] took his goal. And like I said, clean sheet, three points.”
On challenge of upcoming schedule:
“This is a good time to rotate the squad, it’s a three game week. Players have to come in who played in the Defiance game the other week, who had some minutes. Players get some good minutes on Wednesdsay.”
REAL SALT LAKE HEAD COACH MIKE PETKE
On the game:
“Before I get into it, we actually created five or six [chances]. There were three in the first half – [Jefferson] Savarino cutting in twice and didn’t get enough of the ball, Sam [Johnson] pretty much on the goal line then [Savarino] with a break away that hit the post in the second half. Albert [Rusnak] had an excellent attempt just going over…so five or six, but listen. It comes down to this: I’m getting sick and tired – and I’m not faulting my players whatsoever – after these games to come back and say we deserved more out of it and did enough. For me, I just talked to the team about it and they understand and agree – we all have to grow up a little bit. The days of saying we’re a young team, which we are, have to be pushed a little into the past. We have to get a bit more savvy in situations. We have to get a bit more clinical. I thought we started the game pretty well tonight against one of the hottest teams in the league getting back and preventing. Their rotations caused us a bit of a problem, but at the end of the day we did well with it. In the second half we started playing and started doing things.
“I’m challenging these guys and I’m challenging my coaching staff and myself that me coming in here after games and saying that, ‘the boys did well tonight, but it just didn’t go our way’ – that has to be over. It starts with me. How do we figure out a way to connect more passes to start the game? [Nicolas] Lodeiro himself runs 14 or 15k a game and people might not understand what that means – that’s freaking a lot of running. The work he puts in and the pressure he puts on along with Jordan Morris along with Will Bruin tonight. How can we grow up a little bit from the coaching staff to the players and figure this out. Yes, we’re compared to other teams in the league with more money and everything like that…no excuses. Let the critics point to that and let the fans say that. For me, we have to grow up a bit. The times over the past few years when we’ve turned it on and played excellent and won games…then all of a sudden to come back to this. It starts with me. It starts with my coaching staff and it goes to the players.
“For us, starting this week, it’s not going to be much different because we prepared this team. Everything they did tonight, the players knew about it and we expected. Now it’s more looking at us. I’m getting tired of preparing for other teams and how they play. The league has grown and teams have gotten so good so that’s why you’re forced to do that a bit, but we have to take a look inside ourselves. I’m getting sick and tired of coming in here and saying we played well and it just wasn’t our night or we just didn’t put that goal away. That’s basically it.”
REAL SALT LAKE MIDFIELDER KYLE BECKERMAN
On what was said at halftime:
“We felt as the game went on we were getting ahold of the game with a little bit more time. It was just about staying in the game, knowing we were going to get another chance. We just didn’t over the finish line tonight but we have a lot to look forward to.”
On the takeaways from the match:
“We can take a lot. We didn’t come in here to just defend. Maybe we didn’t have as much possession as Seattle did, but it’s the same things we’re trying to do. When we get the ball down we’re able to create. We can’t play like that again next week and defend as much as we did. We’re going to start over and be ready for next week. Tonight was something to build off of.”
