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Mike and Eli’s postgame wrap

Jim Curtin’s postgame press conference

Postgame interviews with Fernando Aristeguieta and Andre Blake

Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

Jim Curtin

Opening remarks

The guys put a ton into the game. We talked about it in the locker room: it was going to be a tough task to beat a good team three times in a row. I thought we started the game very well, I thought that it was a strong first half. Got to about the 65th minute and the penalty call happens. It’s a freak one where the guy is trying to stop and Tranquillo is trying to get out of the way; unfortunate because it goes against us. We showed some grit to get back, to pull back the goal back and have all the momentum — obviously a great crowd here tonight — and then concede almost immediately off of the tap.

I thought Ray was excellent on the night but on that play he got beat 1v1, someone has to maybe slide and bail him out. It’s a tough one but, again, hard, tough result. New York is a good team. We didn’t take our chances very well tonight, a lot of opportunities for shots and we missed the target a bunch. It was a challenging part of the evening. I thought we got the ball in very dangerous spots a lot but the possibility of maybe a red card on the Sapong play could have been a turning point. Chaco in the box could maybe be called. These are the little calls that either go for or against you, and tonight was difficult.

On Ray’s Play

I thought Ray was very good on the night. He pressured well, picked off a lot of balls. He seemed possessed out there;  it was unfortunate that he got caught on that one play in the box where it’s a dangerous part of the field but again: we concede goals as a team. Someone should be there to help, slide over and bail him out there.

On the team keeping composure when things are going well

It’s devastating obviously to give up a goal after you worked so hard to finally get your first to tie it up. It’s a mentality thing. The messages we try to preach are never to get too high or too low in the run of the 90 minutes. We could have done a better job managing that. We’re always trying to make them play backwards off the kickoff after you score a goal, that didn’t happen. They were able to get forward fairly fast and it was difficult because, again, I thought we had a lot of the play tonight and deserved something from the game points wise.

On the game’s style of play

We knew we needed three points tonight so the game plan early was to high press them, that might have led to a little bit of a direct game from both teams. I thought our pressure in the first 45 was very good, I thought we had them pinned in, had some chances but just, again, lacked a little bit on the final passing in front of goal. It was a game where there wasn’t a lot of short balls in the midfield, that’s for sure, for both teams. It was a real game though; it was a high tempo, it was a fast game. It was two teams that played well tonight and unfortunately we came up short.

On Brian Sylvestre

He had a — in training got a laceration in his finger, kind of the webbed part of his hand, he had some stitches there. One of the stitches — everything was fine with that, he could play with it, no big deal, but then the stitches broke. He had to have them re-sown up and his hand was really swollen after that so, unfortunately, he couldn’t go.

On Pfeffer’s performance in place of Nogueira

I thought it was — I trusted him to put him out there again after I talked about a couple of plays he could have done better on the DC goals.  And, again, they were 50 yards from goal, the plays that he could do: take a foul, put his body on somebody, move his feet a little defensively. I though he responded well. We watched a lot of film on the DC game. He stepped up and I thought he had a good performance. Had a couple chances at the top of the box that you would like to hit the target but he did a good job. There’s always growing and developing with young players but I trusted him in a big spot in a big game and he had a strong performance.

On missing Nogueira

He is a very, very good player, an underated player in our league. We miss him, obviously, but he’s not here, he’s injured. So, again, we have to have the mentality for everyone else to step up their game a little bit and I actually thought the guys actually did that despite the score line. This is a hard one. There’s been games where we’ve been outplayed and you can tip your cap to the other team but I thought tonight we actually deserved something from the game. New York is a very good team; again, it would be tough to beat them three times in a row. But I thought we did enough to get something from the game.

On the problems that have occurred this season “snake bit”

We talk about that as a staff, there’s been some difficult situations, for sure, whether it be injuries, calls that you think maybe could go your way. It’s a challenge, you know? Poor Tranquillo: I put [him] into the game and within 30 seconds he’s on the wrong end of a tough call. That has nothing to do with him it’s just an unfortunate, freakish, freak play. He did everything he could to not touch the guy, it’s just a tough one. Yeah, I guess there is an element of feeling snake bit with the crazy goals that we tend to give up. It’s something that we’re trying to fight through. It’s difficult but, at the same time, we have to learn from all these situations and then try to get better.

On Ethan White

I thought he had a good game. I thought he won things in the air. He did well, won his individual battles. I thought he put in a good performance. I thought Mo did a good job limiting good forwards. It’s obviously tough, the PK was tough, and then the one play in the box, maybe it’s not on Ethan but maybe he could do a little better to come over and help Ray, and also we could have done better in the midfield to have pressure, when that ball got clipped out wide there was too much time and space. So, you know, everybody can do better on that one.

On Tranquillo’s performance and his future

With Vincent being out obviously it’s a little bit of a unique spot for him. Ideally he’d be a little bit better up the field but he’s a guy, again, I’ve said can play in the 10 spot, can play out wide, so he gives us some versatility. I thought he had a couple of good plays, you can tell his quality. I’m excited to have him on board and be part of the group.

On talking to Tranquillo post game

I just said to keep his head up, I mean, it’s a difficult one [but] we’re a team: We win as a team and we lose as a team and, again, it’s not on him in that regard. It was a little bit of a freak play, a little bit unlucky. Again, on a different night the same call when Chaco gets kind of tangled up could go our way. But we’ve been a team this year where whenever we take one step forward we kind of take two back, so it’s been a fight in that regard, and we’ll have to dig ourselves out of it. We go to Orlando now which is obviously a difficult place to go to and then you have the Open Cup semifinals. So, we have some time to work on things in training and get things right.

Zach Pfeffer

Thoughts on the game

I’d say for the first half and even halfway into the second half or so, I thought we were all over them. I thought we were pressing in the attacking half of the field. We had some decent chances in the first half, came out and took over the game to be honest. It’s definitely disappointing, losing against a rival in Red Bull. This was definitely a game we needed to get points from, so it was tough in that regard but there’s a lot of positives from the first half. I try to be as positive as I can, but, again, it’s tough. We’ll have to watch the tape again and keep going. Can’t look back. We don’t have many games left so we’ll just keep moving forward.

On trying to replicate Vincent Nogueira

Tonight was the best physically that I felt. I thought I played very well. One thing that the coaching staff wanted to see from me personally was to step higher up the field and win some more balls and I thought I did that tonight and that me and BC did really well up the middle. The coaching staff always preaches that when one guy goes down it’s the next guy up and you have to go out and just fill in that role seamlessly so that’s what I’m trying to do to fill in for Vince. Like I said I thought I did well tonight and we just didn’t get the result.

CJ Sapong

On not putting shots on target

You’ve just got to concentrate more that’s pretty much the only thing.

On his holdup play

I was just trying to get involved. I think sometimes it put me out of position, maybe a half second late to the spot or if I was there then the ball didn’t get there. So I’ve just got to find a better balance of finding the ball and getting close to goal.

On the emotional swing of equalizing and immediately conceding

It’s devastating because we put a lot of work in to get the goal back and should have been up in the first place. It’s something that we’re maybe a little too familiar with at this point in the season but hopefully we can continue to grind out and have it something that helps us out at the end of the season so we’ll just have to wait and see.

Tranquillo Barnetta

On the penalty

Yeah for me it was not really a foul because I was standing behind but he fell down and the ref thought that I hit him. It happens like this sometimes and you can’t change it so you try to come back and fix the mistake then you can’t hold on to the 1-1 scoreline and it was hard to come back again.

On his personal goals after giving a penalty in his first play

Of course you hope that you don’t start like this but it happens sometimes and you have to refocus, try to play easy and I think after this I was better and came into the game. I think I gave away two or three passes that I think I usually make so for myself I have to work hard next week to get better and I’m sure that you’ll see a Barnetta on the team sheet.

On helping set up Sebastien’s goal

Yeah I think it was important and it shows me that I can do something to help the team. Like I said originally I don’t want to start like this and I was sorry for the team but now we have to go on to the next game and then we will totally different.

On coming into a wide open game with frequent transitions

I think every coach hopes that the game isn’t like this where the ball goes from one side to the other but we tried to have a little control of the game but yeah it opened as we had to do everything for the equalizer and of course they have some space and chances. But yeah how I said next time we’ll try to have more control over the game.

On the atmosphere

Yeah it was great, also at the warmup they were excited that I’m here. I hope that next time I can give Philadelphia more than a penalty.

Maurice Edu

On conceding so quickly after equalizing

It’s a rollercoaster with highs and lows and it’s about how you respond to that. I think we responded well to the first goal to get the equalizer. There was a bit of a momentum shift but only momentarily because they came right back and scored. It’s a little bit of an uphill battle, especially at home where you want to play well in front of your fans. You want to win in your home stadium and make this a fortress so to not win and give up three goals is a blow. All we can do now is pick our heads up and focus on the next game.

On getting caught in a wide open game

It’s easy to say but the way games go kind of dictates how that works out. In an ideal world you don’t want to get into that open game because of what can happen, but when you’re chasing a game it does open a little bit because you need push numbers forward and you’re a little more susceptible to a counter-attack.

So yeah today wasn’t an ideal game for us but now all we can do is get ready for the next game, learn from today, and learn from the DC game. I think 6 goals (conceded) in 2 games makes it look difficult to win so we need to be cleaner, defend better as a group and execute when we have chances. I thought we played really well in the first half actually, didn’t give them much, had some good chances, and probably should have scored one or two of them.

On how Pfeffer filled in for Nogueira

I thought Zach matured from the last game. He covered more ground today, broke up some plays, got in good positions. I thought he played well for the time he was on the pitch.

New York Red Bulls Postgame Quotes

Jesse Marsch

On the game/response after halftime

I think you have to give credit to Philadelphia for coming out and putting us on our heels and bit and they were a little bit unlucky not to get a lead. We were a little flat. We were not as sharp as we usually are, we weren’t covering as much ground, and we couldn’t really establish our rhythm in the first half. Came in out of halftime, we weren’t happy, we said we’ve got to pick it up at all levels. And then, you know, at the beginning of the second half it’s not perfect but we get ourselves going a little bit more, and then obviously inserting Shaun Wright-Phillips into the game changed the game so that was good to see.

On switching Lloyd Sam and Mike Grella in the second half

Those guys have been locked in with Ray Gaddis and Fabinho in all these different games , we’re just trying to figure out ways if we can free them up a little bit more by switching them. Maybe find Sam a little bit more room if he’s playing against Gaddis. Not sure that it worked but thought we tried to see if we could get a better matchup.

On what he has seen from Shaun Wright-Phillips

He’s a smart soccer player and you can see how quick and crafty he is and how good he is around the goal. Even the one that he missed wide, he took so well and we’ve seen him score that repeatedly in training so he’s going to be dangerous and he provides us with something a little different than what we have so, we all know we’re getting a good player but it was certainly good to see him step on the field and make an impact so quickly.

On why Sam came out for Shaun Wright-Phillips

Just felt like trying to get Shaun on the field and survey who’s having a good game and who we think we need to replace to now help the game tactically and from a quality standpoint.

On the Wright-Phillips brothers connecting for the second goal

Yeah yeah, it was great. It was great to see, you can see they really enjoyed it. they’re both such good players that they’re going to naturally enjoy playing with each other and I think its so much more than just being brothers, the fact that they’re both so smart and quality footballers.

On changing formations at the end

Yeah, we went to five at the back just to try and get, we felt like we were giving away to much on the wings so we do that sometimes in games where we feel like we’ve got a lead or it’s close on the road and we don’t want to give things up on the wing. The trick with Maidana is that he drifts into those wide spots and he can create advantages in those areas so we felt that that was the way to close the game out.

Luis Robles

On if he thought about Shaun Wright-Phillips coming in during the game

We knew he would make a difference. He’s been training with us for the last few weeks. We know what he’s capable of, to our advantage, the league is not fully aware of and I think he put that on display today so people are going to take notice. He’s a fantastic player and his resume speaks for itself and I know that he’s going to be a big part of what we’re doing in the second half of the season.

On what it means to the team to get off to a good start

I think it continues of what we’ve been doing after that loss in Columbus. We knew that we were at the halfway point and so on the back end there were going to be a lot of important games because at that point, I believe, outside of one game, it was all Eastern Conference opponents so this is the opportunity for us to start creating separation between the other guys and us. Of course, with Philly, all the history of this season so far gave us that extra bit of motivation to come down he and get a result. I think it shows the ability of this team to bounce back from that first half and then also, I made a bad decision on the goal and the guys bailed me out and I think that also shows that we’re a family. That we not only play for the organization, we play for each other.

On the debut of Shaun Wright-Phillips

Shaun was fantastic. He came in, I’m hoping that we’re gonna here a lot of 98-99. I think that’s really what the guys did there with their jersey numbers and it worked out today, it paid off. We knew after watching him train with us the last couple weeks that he was going to be an important player, it was just a matter of time before he gets on the field, once the signing was done and once it got completed, we felt good about him coming onto the field this week. So, to be able to look on your bench an see Shaun Wright-Phillips as your substitute, I think that brings a lot of confidence to Jesse, the staff, and to our guys. He was brilliant, he set up the PK and he set up Bradley Wright-Phillips on the goal.

Dax McCarty

Thoughts on the game

I thought we were s***. You can quote me on that too. I thought it was probably our worst half of the season. Philly beat us in every facet of the game tonight. It’s hilarious, how soccer is sometimes. I thought it was worst games of the season and we come out and win 3-1. The other two games, we completely dominate, they don’t even have a sniff in the game, and then they come out and beat us 2-0 in the first game and then in penalties in the second game. Soccer is a funny sport sometimes. I thought it was one of our worst games of the season tonight. We weren’t clean with the ball, our movement wasn’t sharp, I thought we lost pretty much every physical battle that we could lose. Philly’s got a game plan. They play direct, they play to their big boys. We weren’t ready to handle it even though we knew that was their game plan and I thought we were fortunate to come out of here with three points. It’s funny how soccer is sometimes.

On the impact of Shaun Wright-Phillips

I thought Shaun was brilliant. Some really clever touches, some really clever runs. He was dynamic, he was dangerous. He went at them 1v1, put them on their heels and he probably should have had a goal as well. I thought Shaun was excellent when he came on and I thought he changed the game for us in a very positive way.

On what the win means

Obviously it’s nice. If you ask me, I would much rather still be in the Open Cup but three points in the league go a long way. Obviously it’s a six point game for us. Create a little bit of distance between us and the teams at the bottom, that’s always a positive thing. I know we have numerous games in hand on most teams in the Eastern Conference, including Philly. I think it’s a step in the right direction in terms of us winning ugly. It was an ugly game from us and sometimes we try to win too pretty and it doesn’t always work out for us so, I thought Philly deserves a lot of credit. I thought they played the best that they’ve played against us this year. I thought our defense bent but didn’t break. A pretty bad mistake in the back leads to their goal and obviously we need to be sharper and clean those things up but for me they didn’t really have too many dangerous chances but we know how they’re going to play every time. They’re going to put their big boys up front and try to win second balls and knockdowns and try to be physical and out battle us and I thought they did that for the most part for the entire game. I thought we were second best all night. Soccer is a funny game, we come out on top 3-1, it’s a big win for us.

Shaun Wright-Phillips

On his first game with the team

It wasn’t so much for the impact for me, I thought it was a hard game for us. I thought Philly played really well, especially in the first half and they kind of stopped us playing our game but I think in the second half, even from the tart, the way they started playing our game and stringing some passes together and I just thought that when I come on, I just have to add to that and hopefully create a few chances that some of us can get on the end of.

On connecting with his brother for the goal

To be honest, when the ball came down, first of all I was just thinking about making some space to try and get an assist and put somebody on the end of it and it worked out perfectly. I just know from playing that, when you hit the byline, try to cut it back rather than go across the face of goal and luckily my brother, someone was there.

On if their goal together carried any extra meaning

It’s always going to have meaning if you can help your brother achieve his targets but I think the most meaningful part is we got three points on the road and we just have to carry on to the next game.

Sacha Kljestan

General thoughts on the game

Not our best game but coming home with three points is very important. We’ve said it a couple of time snow where we’ve gone on the road and had to really, really put in a good effort. You know, maybe not our best game with the ball but I think the second half mentality was awesome and we came away with a good three points.

On how it feels to have Shaun Wright-Phillips play in a game

Yeah, I’m happy for him, for his performance. He hasn’t played in a few months, he’s been on vacation for a little while then he’s been training with us. He’s been sharp in training. Yesterday in training he stayed after and did some finishing and it was ridiculous, the talent that he has and experience that he has, it’s another great option for us and I’m really happy with the way he came in and contributed tonight.

On converting the penalty kick

Yeah, it came in a big moment in the game. Bradley, unfortunately, had missed a few and decided not to take it so I was the next one to step up. Fortunately for us, we put it in the back of the net.

Bradley Wright-Phillips

On the team’s performance

Yeah, it was a frustrating first half but the one positive we can take away from that is sometimes we play like that and we’ve conceded goals. We concede a goal in the first half. We gave ourselves a chance to still be in the game.

On his brother coming on/assisting his goal

You see when he came on, he looked sharp. He did was he was supposed to today. He got in behind the fullback, he won a penalty, he assisted on a goal, for me. Yeah I think it was good. An all-around good performance for his debut.

On if that’s it’s his first time connecting with his brother

Yeah, yeah. He tried to set me up when I was at City with him, a lot of times, you know. He was being very biased and I couldn’t finished them so he was mad at me so today I concentrated on the cut-back and put it in the back of the net.