Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

Note: Comments from Jim Curtin and Andre Blake transcribed by PSP. All other transcribed comments provided by Philadelphia Union and New England Revolution. Questions have been paraphrased.

Jim Curtin

On the result

Obviously we’re a team so we know what Wednesday’s all about. We were able to rest some guys. I thought a lot of guys stepped up and had big performances for us, though. Andre Blake, obviously, was the one that’s going to stand out to everyone but at the same time a lot of guys on the field — when I wrote the team sheet this morning I realized everyone’s at least started a game so it wasn’t as crazy as maybe some people might think, a lot of guys have contributed 10 or more games in the starting lineup this year. So, happy for them to go out against what I think is the best team in the East; mainly because they have right up the middle the two center backs and Jermaine (Jones) when he’s playing well, they’re a top team in the East. So, happy for the result. Thought we could have stolen it at the end with Seba (Sebastian Le Toux) but that would have been really stealing something so we get out of here with a point, and keep the slim playoff hopes we have alive, and also have some confidence going into the Open Cup final.

On his approach to tonight’s game and for Wednesday’s Open Cup game:

You look at the table and you see where we’re at. The turf was a factor too, coming in on the Astroturf — a horrible surface, football lines, it sounds like a throwback to MLS ten years back. But, anyway, we thought long and hard about it, we put a team out on the field that we thought that could get a result, also keeping in mind rest and saving guys legs. You saw, obviously, the majority of the starters that would start in the final didn’t play more than 45 minutes so we accomplished that goal. No injuries was key and, again, we’re happy with the performance.

On whether tonight’s win raises his team’s confidence before the U.S. Open Cup Final against Sporting KC on Wednesday:

For sure. I thought the Houston game at home was critical, just for confidence, to get a win there, and now to go on the road again against a top Eastern Conference team with a lot of our reserves and get a result only helps the belief in the locker room and again, competition is very good. You look across the way at what New England has and the guys they bring off the bench, they have a strong team. So, again, competition pushes teams a long way and we know we’re not in that elite level that they’re in right now but, at the same time, we have the opportunity to lift the trophy on Wednesday and we did what we needed to do to give ourselves the best chance to win.

Aside from getting a strong performance, how were you able to keep New England to one goal?

Well, we packed it in, I’m sure you guys could tell that, we tried to clog the middle as best we could. At home, they really took it to us when we played a couple of weeks ago. The one thing we did is we flipped our two holding mids at home, kind of inverted it a little bit and pushed them higher just so Jermaine and Caldwell didn’t have so much time on the ball. They’re still all very comfortable on the ball, that’s what makes them so hard to play against. They really have started to split the center backs really wide, and they can advance it themselves, so they present a lot of problems for teams. If you are able to intercept the ball and counter, that’s the one thing where we maybe got at them a few times. Unlucky. Seba had that opportunity at the end to maybe steal it but, again, I think it’s a…I’ll take a point, let’s just say that.

On Tranquillo Barnetta

First and foremost, Tranquillo is great in our locker room in terms of helping with the young guys, his quality raises the bar in our locker room, everybody can look to him as a guy who played in the Champions League as recently as just a couple of months back for Schalke against Real Madrid, so, again, he has that experience. You’re starting to see him really get his legs under him. We get the data back for distance covered in games, who runs the most, and our past three performances he’s been the leader from not only our team, and the other team. Sebastien Le Toux’s a guy who runs a ton, and takes pride in that, but Tranquillo has passed him in that regard. So, you’re starting to see a guy who’s fit, coming into form at an important time when we go into a Cup final, and a guy whose class I don’t think I have to talk about, I think people understand where he’s been and what he adds to our team. Put in some good assists and got a goal, got his first goal last weekend, so his confidence is high now, but also, too, he brings a lot to our locker room.

Philadelphia Union forward Fernando Aristeguieta

On the sequence leading up to the goal:

It was a good play on the side. I received the ball from Warren (Creavalle) and I saw that the defender turned to the right, so I turned to the left. Then the first option was to give the ball to Seba (Sebastien Le Toux). He was passing me. He was going to be alone, but then the ball was in a very good position to hit it and I did.

On the team’s mindset going into the Open Cup Final against Sporting KC on Wednesday:

To tell you the truth, it reminds the fans from a very long time ago, we always have one eye in the final, one eye in the tournament. So, now is a big moment for us. Now, is the moment that we have been expecting. It was a very long time and now we have to enjoy these days that we have before the final. Enjoy the day of the final and give to the club, the first trophy.

Andre Blake

On managing to get one point on the road

It’s great. Unfortunately, we didn’t get three points, but we’re satisfied with one. I think we went out there and the guys stuck to the task, and it was good.

On keeping the game tied:

It was a good performance but I just want to say I have a great goalkeeper coach that I believe in. I have two goalkeepers, Brian (Sylvestre) and John (McCarthy), that we push each other every day so from here we only can get better.

On his team’s performance despite missing key players:

Well, it’s soccer, you know, and at the end of the day I think the guys they went out, they did their best. I think everyone gave it a good shot and in the end we were able to get a point.

Any other takeaways from the game?

No, just good overall.

New England Revolution postgame quotes

Jay Heaps

On the result:

It was obviously a hard fought match and I want to credit Philadelphia for being well coached and well aligned tonight. It was very hard to break down and we had chances and we also have to credit their goalkeeper, I thought he had a great night. We gave up two shots on goal and one of them went in so we have to be a little bit better there and make sure we finish games when we do have the lead.

On what his team needed to do differently to win:

Score. Unfortunately the field was extremely fast tonight. You could see the ball was running away from guys a little bit. Ideally, you’d like to be a little crisper, a little bit sharper and when we did I thought we were able to get through and we had 20 shots I think and 11 on goal. So, we did get chances and I thought to get that many shots on goal and particularly at the end there we probably should have scored a goal, but didn’t. I thought we did a good job getting to those points and now we got to be more clinical in the final shot.

On his team giving up the game-tying goal:

It’s a bummer. I thought it was tough because we came out in the second half and I thought we were flying and then we hit a lull there and they capitalized right at the time when it was a little bit of a lull. We were giving the ball away cheaply and there were some not so great possessions. I would’ve liked to see us tighten it up and be a little bit more from say 55 minutes to 70 minutes. I think that was the lull and then we really turned on another gear. I would’ve liked us to keep it like that from the beginning of the second half. To really get the second goal and I think we’re built to get the second goal. We’re not built to hold a one nothing lead from a 1:30 or, whenever it was, on. We want to go after the second goal, especially at home.

On the amount of scoring chances his team created towards the end of the game:

Everyone sensed it. Everyone wanted it. I want to credit our guys. Our guys went in there and not one guy didn’t leave everything on the field. I was particularly thrilled with Jermaine (Jones). I thought Jermaine worked so hard in that first half, to really put us in a position. He was winning balls in the air, second balls, everything that we asked him to do this week he was all on and he lead the group and I think his leadership in the second half really got our guys realizing it was 1-1, and we needed to get the points. I’d like to have the three points to really put an exclamation point on that anecdote but Jermaine was excellent in getting us there. I thought our guys were feeding off of it well and we were just a little bit unlucky.

On Philadelphia goalkeeper Andre Blake’s performance:

It was pretty good. It was pretty good — he almost saved the penalty too. He was all over the place. He’s actually a player I’ve watched quite a bit coming from UCONN and scouting the local colleges and he’s really strong. He makes these saves out of nowhere and I thought we would’ve had two or three tonight and he was excellent.

On Juan Agudelo’s performance coming off the bench:

I think Juan has been excellent the last three or four times we’ve put him on the field. I was excited to get him onto the field tonight. Went early to him and it’s a good balance. I think for me, when we look at starting lineups and we look at what the week, how guys train in the week and what the chemistry looks like. Also, matchups and where we think one of those should be Charlie (Davies) or Juan are very different in how they play and that’s a good thing, to have a couple different options of how to beat teams. In terms of Juan I’m real excited where he is right now and some of them we’re going to start to really see him play.

On his team having 14 corner kicks:

A corner kick is easier said than done because you’re in their area but, it’s not a layup. But, at the same time, I look at it more, what are we getting from the corner kicks? Does our service look good, are our runs good and from all those stand points I thought, I got to go back and look at it because there were different barrages, but, I felt like we ran a little short corner and Lee (Nguyen) got a good shot on goal and it was kind of a back door. I think we had some really good service and guys cleared things off the line. Obviously, you get 14 corners and to not get a goal you’re disappointed but, I have go back, I have to look at every one of them, but, I thought a majority of them were dangerous and that’s the key. You can’t say every corner we’re going to get ‘x’ amount of shots. We have to try and find ways to get shots.

On positive takeaways from the game:

You look at it two different ways. From a point stand point it is extremely disappointing and knowing that we could have really made a move within the standings. But, there are positives like I said; Jermaine (Jones) and how he handled this week and the preparation and stepping on the field and leading the guys the way he did. I was really thrilled about that, obviously, when we watch the film there will be things that we need to correct but on the field there were some positives. Negatives will be obviously giving up a little bit, taking our foot off the gas a little bit there for 10 to 15 minutes, lulling and allowing a team to get a shot on goal that was one we’d want back. I think everyone wants that one back.

On waiting another week to clinch a playoff berth:

Yeah it’s tough. You want to punch your ticket when you can and a win tonight would’ve done it and we didn’t do it. But, right now I’m looking more at what our opponent is going to look like. The playoffs will take care of themselves if we continue to play and do and prepare the right way and so we just have to keep having performances like this. But, tighten it up in those final areas.

Jermaine Jones

On the result:

I think that we controlled almost the whole game. We had a lot of chances, but I guess sometimes it is, in soccer, like that. You don’t use your chance. Team get one chance, or maybe two, they can make two goals. The one, they scored, and the other one, I think it was a corner for us and they were on the counter break and ran one against one against Bobby (Shuttleworth), and he held it. We had so many chances here. I think Philadelphia’s best player was the goalkeeper today. He had a great day, and you have to respect that. We are upset. Of course we want to win that game. We want to make playoffs. But now it’s concentration on Chicago, and you try everything to do it there.

On goalkeeper Andre Blake’s performance:

Yeah I tried and I saw them come on goal. Like I said before, he saved them good and you have to respect that. It was a good game from him, and like I said before he was Philadelphia’s best player. I respect it, that he has a great day. But also I’m a little bit upset with the whole situation that we played to 1-1. We get 1-0 in front and we have to learn that we bring that game home. And don’t run on that kind of breaks and open the game that easy. Maybe when you have bad luck, they score the second goal and we can lose the game when you played the whole game better. That’s the point that I think just makes everybody upset from us. But what we can do? We have to look forward and try and make it in Chicago.

On waiting another week to try and clinch a berth in the playoffs:

You know for me it’s okay, the point that I say, it’s a week more where we can train and try to make mistakes go away. So if you see we have a lot of chances, the goalkeeper, I said before, the goalkeeper had a great day. Our point is that we had chances in front and we run counter breaks, and they can finish the game at 2-1 and nobody will know how that happens. That’s a point that we have to understand, have to learn and if you 1-0 in front you have to bring it home and keep the points here.

On the supporter’s tifo of Jermaine Jones as Indiana Jones and the support from the fans:

Yeah I saw Indiana Jones. Yeah it’s amazing. All of the support, from all the people in the stadium is always amazing. They support away games, it’s amazing. I don’t saw it before, like when we went together the team, and all the guys are like ‘you’ll see, you’ll see’ and I’m like ‘What?’ And then I saw it. It was amazing and I can honestly say that the support from the fans, it’s always amazing.

On whether he has ever had a display of support like that in his career:

I would say, no (laughs).

On his role in motivating the team during the second half:

Me and Jay (Heaps), we talked on Tuesday. I know that the game in Montreal was not my best game. And I know that I’m here to, maybe not to score goals like every game, but with my presence to help the team and to try and push the team, and do that what makes me strong. Never give up and always try to push. Everybody who know me, that I will start already in training and I hate to lose. And it’s a point, and my teammates they know that I can sometimes get a little bit angry. This is like what I try to help them. We have a young team and all the stuff that happen right now is maybe like a, how you say, like a process where you can learn from. We know that we have the quality, and I’m 100% sure we will make it to the playoffs. Then there’s a couple games in there where you cannot get goals like that today or make that mistakes.

Juan Agudelo

On the 1-1 result:

You know we were a bit unlucky, but we were doing very well maintaining possession. Credit goes to Philly for staying in the game and they were able to get one back.

On his scoring chance in the 79th minute:

Yeah I mean I thought just get it on target, make the keeper work, and that’s exactly what he did, and great save by him.

On Philadelphia goalkeeper Andre Blake’s performance tonight

I think definitely outstanding goalkeeping. I feel like they tied because of his performance.

On not taking full points from the game

That’s the worst way to lose, to know that you held a team to only two shots and for you to be able to knocking at the door and not able to get another one is frustrating to say the least.