Photo and Video: Daniel Gajdamowicz

Jim Curtin’s postgame press conference

Postgame interviews with Sebastien Le Toux and Amobi Okugo

Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

Interim head coach Jim Curtin

Thoughts on the game

Crazy with the rain and everything, but I thought our team had a good mentality. You know, coming off the rain delay, but I thought they also started off the game very well. I thought we should have been up two or three – zero from the start. They were a little sluggish; took New England awhile to get going. Once they did, they’re a handful. They have some guys that can make a play around the goal for whatever reason, whether it was us blocking things or making a diving tackle off the end; we were able to keep them off the board. They pushed the game in the second half there so it was a little bit of a lull. To be honest, the time out and the rain delay saved us a bit because I felt that we were really under the gun. Credit to my guys, though, I thought they all played well. If you go through man by man, I thought everyone had a pretty solid night.

On keeping everyone focused during the rain delay

Yeah, it’s a tricky one. You hear ten different updates from ten different people. Some have rules of thirty minutes, it’ll be thirty minutes for sure. But no, they just saw lightning so it’s five more minutes after that. There’s always this mixed message that you get, you just try to keep the guys as focused as possible, but also as loose and calm as possible. The first reports we got, it was going to be a serious storm and gonna take an hour, but you don’t want to let that sit into their heads so you give them little pieces of information and not too much where they’re tuning out and shutting down. So they were ready to go. To their credit, our staff did a good job keeping them moving and motivated in there. There were some soccer tennis games going on, just keeping active. But once they got on the field, Kevin Miller got them going and they were ready to go.

On the early goal from Conor Casey

Of course, yeah. It’s always good to play with the lead, at home especially. We haven’t done that much this year. We’re trying to make it a tough place to play again. There’s been a lull of games in the beginning of this year where we weren’t “protecting this house,” so to speak. But I think we stepped up and a shutout at home is what you like to see. I don’t want to call that a comfortable win, but it felt comfortable. It felt like we were gonna not give up a goal tonight, and that’s something I really like from our backline to our midfield doing a good job defensively and our forwards as well, defending well.

On clawing your way back into the playoff picture

No, it’s good. It’s positive. Fortunately the East isn’t very strong right now this year, which is helpful. When you look at the table, I think it’ll probably take 45 points maybe, which comes to about twelve wins and ten ties maybe something in that range to get into the playoffs. We’re running out of games, though, so there is a sense of urgency. We have two at home. Colorado and then New York, two huge games, where you don’t call “must wins” yet, but they’re two huge games so we have to be ready for them. It’s been a busy, crazy schedule, but like we said in the locker room, I told them, “You know, we’re two games from being in the first final this club has ever been in so that’s something special.” Hopefully you sit back now and watch the Dallas-Carolina game tomorrow, you hope there’s five or six red cards, and you go from there.

On the busy week coming up

It’s tough. Some of the problems, some of the man management got solved, you know, with Mo (Maurice Edu) getting a red card, with Michael Lahoud getting a red card and having to sit out tonight so he has fresh legs for Colorado. You lose Mo, though. Austin Berry, the poor kid can’t catch a break. He’s sick now, and it’s violent; he’s throwing up and not doing too well. I mean, poor guy, anything that could go wrong with him this year health-wise has. We just want to get him back to one hundred percent because that’s a big piece. I thought that would be the simple solution, but Ethan White is also ready now. He’s ready to go and either one of those guys can step in and do the job; I’m confident in that. But there’s tinkering. Brian Carroll came in tonight with fresh legs and did a great job; I thought he broke up a ton of plays. He was a good leader on the field for us. Maurice Edu played great and won a lot of the air balls and broke up a ton of plays for us. I’m happy with everyone.

On Sebastien Le Toux becoming modern pro era goalscoring leader of the US Open Cup

Crazy. I mean, that’s something special. I saw that stat and for as big of an honor as that it, it was kept kind of quiet. I think I saw it on like a little blurb last game against the Cosmos, I think he moved into a tie for it. You think about how long this tournament has been going. Is that in the Modern Era so like ’96? Okay, so still a ton of goals. It’s a great honor for him to have because there’s obviously been a ton of players that have played in the big games. It just shows that he’s been on good teams that advance and go make little runs in the competition. He’s scoring goals right now. Was that his best goal or a highlight reel goal for him? Probably not, but we’ll take it. You know what I mean? It shows up on the stat sheet as a goal and it’s a real honor for him to have.

On the team chemistry

As far as chemistry goes, there is something happening in the midfield, you can tell. Christian Maidana has been something we went to kind of, I’ll be honest, it wasn’t my genius or anything like that. Vincent Nogueira got injured so we put Christian in there a little more during practice and he’s kind of taken it and run with it. He’s doing well in there. You start to think about getting Nogueira back, it’s exciting. He’ll be, fingers crossed, hopefully ready for Colorado. That’s the timeline there on that one. You add him with things that Maidana is doing right now and you have a handful of midfield. Danny Cruz has been great too so that’s real interchangeable. It’s competition, healthy competition. Everybody’s competing. They fight like crazy on the field and even more on practice.

Speaking of Nogueira, with the way Christian was playing, does that help ease him back in

That’s a great point. Yes, it does. Instead of this being a desperate game, we’re now not sure what we have and scrambling to get the best team out there, you can look at what Christian’s done centerally and see he can hold it down and maybe get Vincent off the bench and get him going now. And something that’s tricky now is he’s never had it, but again, he’s a valuable player so we’re excited to get him back. He’s a guy that can slow the game down. You can give him a ball in any part of the field and he can calm things down. You see us now still play probably more long balls than we’d like to, but it’s in . the competition of survive and advance so we’re trying to get through these games and move on to the next one. Stats get thrown out the window in the Open Cup, that’s for sure. Possession and all that; that’s for baseball.

Sebastien Le Toux

On scoring again in this competition and moving forward to the US Open Cup semfinals

You don’t really think about it. It’s something the fans like more, so I think you should thank your stats guys. It’s a great achievement, but we have more games to play, so it’s good for the team and we have to come out and play.

On getting the clean sheet at home

Yeah, all the guys stayed concentrated and we did a good job defensively especially over the past couple of weeks.

What’s different in terms of the urgency

The fact that maybe Maurice Edu is in the back giving us some more stability. He has more experience and doesn’t panic when you move the ball, so I think it’s a big plus for us. I think everything right now works well and overall it was a good effort from the team. Winning is the most important right now. I don’t think we worry too much about playing well. Of course we move the ball and stay balanced; we think about winning first and not playing pretty.

Amobi Okugo

Are you feeling the same momentum boost as you guys felt in 2012 via this competition that may carry into MLS play

Ever since the LA game, we’ve been on a good run. Ever since Coach Jim implemented his way of coaching we’ve been doing well. We’re just trying to keep it going, keep moving forward, and try to build off of these past few games.

What’s the conversation like when you’re in that weather delay?

We didn’t know how long it was going to be, so we just relaxed, put on the TV, and got our legs rested. Once we got on the field everyone switched on and you can see we came in ready to play right after the break. Wheels had a good chance, could’ve out the game away, but we stayed strong for the last thirty or so.

What’s the significance of the club being able to get back to the semi’s

It’s good. It’s a tournament we take very seriously. Any trophy you can take to your fan base I feel like you should take it seriously. Hopefully we don’t have a repeat of what happened in 2012.

How does it feel to finish off the clean sheet

It’s good, just building it and carrying the motion. Hopefully this will help us for Saturday and keep building it, keep building the confidence and the momentum. We can learn from this game and use it for the future games we have.

New England Revolution postgame quotes

Teal Bunbury

On his general impressions of the game

It was definitely a disappointing loss for us especially now having gotten wins in a lot of the games, we wanted to come out here and get a win and advance, we were two games away from making it to a final, so that’s definitely disappointing, it’s done though and we have to come together as a team, we have to look forward, this really will test everybody’s character. We can’t dwell on the past we can’t dwell on this game. I thought in in the second half though we showed a lot of good spirit, we showed a lot of good teamwork and movement, we have to play a full 90 minutes now.

On the feeling of having to fight back into a game

It takes a lot out of us, I don’t know what it is exactly I think it’s a mindset that we all have to get on the same page from the first whistle because it’s not a light switch that you can just turn on and expect to get back into the game once you’re down a goal or two goals. I feel like the guys are going to start understanding that, and we just got to come together, this is the time in the middle of season where there are always ups and downs. I know the guys have the right mindset and we’re just going to look forward to our next game now.

On quickly conceding the second goal to start the second half

It happens, but it’s definitely not the way we wanted to start the second half, and after that we really took it to them, and then there was that delay that I think slowed us down unfortunately, but I guess that’s part of the game and we have to deal with that and not put ourselves in positions where we’re down and are in situations like that. Looking forward we just have to be sharper. We have to be mentally tougher, and I think we’re going to do that.

On if it’s nice to have quick turnarounds and play again right away

I think it definitely is great for us, we can get this out of our head and get on to the next game, the biggest game is our next game and that’s what we have to focus on. We have to get back, get recovered, get a few good days of training and be ready for Chicago on the weekend, they’re a great team, we’ll be ready for them and we definitely have to be sharper.

Steve Neumann

On how the weather delay factored into the game

I don’t know if it factored into play that much. We’re all used to that sort of thing happening once or twice throughout our careers. I thought we lost some steam after the break, which we can only fault ourselves for first and foremost. It was an interesting game, I thought we played well enough the majority of the time to get a result at least, it just wasn’t our day.

On trailing early in the game

That’s a problem we’ve been having over the past couple of weeks, giving up that early goal is tough. We’re playing against pros here, they know how to close games out, to get in a two goal hole was even worse for us. But again, I thought we fought back well in the ten minutes after the second goal, I thought that was some of our best of the game. We would have loved to advance in the Open Cup and keep getting these games in, so now we turn our full attention to the league.

On the mental aspects of going behind early

You’re in a one-goal hole, the leading team can knowingly sit back and defend knowing that they have the lead, then you start chasing the game. I thought we had a couple chances in the first half to get back into the game and then their second goal took the air out of us a little bit but we responded well and it just didn’t fall our way.

On pushing forward after the loss

As a player you like to have games pretty soon after losses to get the loss out of your head, and start preparing for the next one. Chicago, at home, is a pretty good opportunity for us to get three points, and kind of find ourselves again. We’re looking forward to the stretch and looking forward to getting back on track. We have the talent to do it; we just have to put the pieces together.