Photo: Daniel Studio

Mike and Peter’s postgame wrap

Philadelphia Union postgame quotes

Note: Transcriptions by Philadelphia Union

Jim Curtin

Opening statement…

Disappointing night, a bit of a strange game in that we had good moments with the ball, I thought. Possessed it well. We created a lot of chances but it just wasn’t our night. Credit to Toronto, they are a very good team; organized, tough to break down. I thought obviously, too, that they have guys that punish you if you make a mistake, they were clinical with their chances.

First goal, the ball by [Marky] Delgado is a heck of a ball that beats our whole backline. Obviously, an incredible first touch from Giovinco with that left-footed finish off the post. We fight really hard to get back in the game and to get it to 1-1. And then from there, just disappointing. I don’t know if it’s a foul on Fabi[nho], but a soft free kick and poor marking in the box, and then you chase it again. So, again, the guys responded well and fought.

The third goal is the killer, again, Jozy (Altidore) just kind of bullies us there. Their stars scored some goals, obviously they’re a handful. Giovinco is, safe to say, the best player in the league. He is a tough matchup for any team, he is special. And I think they’re a strong team. The good news is that we get to look forward to Columbus, it’s a quick turnaround. We’ll look at the tape, there still were a lot of positives in the game. I think we had three chances from inside the eight yard line in the second half and just wouldn’t go for us tonight. The group is still getting better. It’s a young backline that is learning all of the time. A disappointing result, but at the same time we have to pick ourselves up and get ready for Columbus.

On Ken Tribbett’s first half …

Yeah it’s hard, hard decisions. I just thought the matchup… well, obviously three goals is not acceptable at home. It’s not all on Ken, we’re a team and we’re in it together. But at the same time, I think he had a tough half and with the speed of Josh, I thought that was a better matchup.

Dealing with Giovinco, knowing that they would be just looking to counter in the second half having got the three goals. Hard decision, again it’s a young backline that is still learning every day, getting better every day, and as hard as the night was for Ken, he’ll still learn from it. He’ll be fine, he still played some good passes and did a heck of a job of getting on the end of a cross for a goal. So there’s positives, but at the same time, you need to learn in these big games against top forwards. So, learning experience for him, Josh came in and did a great job too.

On bouncing back…

Yeah, you know it’s tough to win games in this league that is for sure. You look around and some of the results haren’t going our way right now, as we speak, but we control our own destiny. We know where we are on the table right now, we need to take care of business at home. This is the third time we’ve been beat here, we’ve won nine times if you count the open cups. So this place has been tough to play for teams. Did we let one get away tonight? Yeah, it’s disappointing. We have to find our confidence again at home.

Again, you have a great performance like New England, we talked about it all week: not getting too high and not getting too low after wins and losses. We are probably somewhere in between the two performances tonight, we’re not as perfect as 4-0 result on the road, but we played pretty good tonight in a lot of stretches in the game. It just wasn’t our night, and again credit to Toronto. They’re a good team and have star players that will punish you when we make mistakes.

On defense…

Yeah it’s difficult, you don’t want to get beat by one pass. Again, the pass, if you watch it back, Delgado plays an unbelievable ball and the way that Giovinco handles it without breaking stride is next level stuff. So, you can maybe tip your cap to them on that one, but then the second and third for me are unacceptable.

As a backline, we need to do a good job, but also everybody in front of them needs to do a good job as well. Andre [Blake] made some big saves for us tonight too so, again the looks we got you know two of them go off the post and in. On a different night maybe it’s off the post and out. And these are the breaks in soccer. But I am a big believer in we earn our own luck, so we will need to get better and tighter as a team defensively against Columbus who is still for me even though very low in the table, is going to be a tough matchup for us.

On adjustments to continue playoff push …

I like my team, I don’t think we need to change a lot. I still believe in what we’re doing, the players still believe in what they are doing. So, again there are going to be highs and lows and we just need to keep pushing. I believe now we have nine games left. Four at home, five on the road. and it’s going to be tough but it’s tough for everybody right now.

Every point matters, you can see how tight it is in both conferences, so it will go down to the wire, but we have a group that is still playing well, playing good soccer. Needs to continue though, in the big games against a top team like Toronto. We’ve got a good barometer for where we are at, and what we still need to improve on, and I think we still learned a lot tonight about different guys. So… nine games left and we are going to be right in the thick of this thing until the end.

On speed consideration of Josh Yaro vs. Sebastian Giovinco …

Yeah, it’s tough to change my thinking after a 4-0 performance. It’s tough to change the lineup. I’d be over-tinkering I think.

Again, tonight it didn’t work out but at the same time, we learned from it. We’ll watch the tape, there’s things we could do better. Again, we are somewhere in between, right? We’re not as perfect as the 4-0 victory on the road, and we’re probably not as a bad as the 3-1 loss tonight, but we’re a good team. We believe that, and we will stick to doing things the same way, home and away.

We have taken pride in looking the same way as we approach home games and away games. We score goals, we create chances, and if we continue to work hard, the breaks and the points will come our way.

On Bedoya’s addition and group play…

Bedoya was excellent; he was fine. He connected things, it’s unfortunate that we had to adjust and change just being down a goal, a couple goals, to tweak it maybe in a way that we didn’t really want to, in that you’re scrambling a bit to throw bodies forward, attacking guys on the field. Between Tranquillo (Barnetta) and Bedoya, Warren (Creavalle), Alberg when he came in, you have a group of guys that want the ball in tight spots, that are comfortable on it, and that will create problems for teams. You can see the relationship between Bedoya and Barnetta getting better and better. Again, second game, I didn’t want to play Ale for 90 minutes, but the way that we had to sub and scramble, he handled it fine. He says his body felt great. Good performance from him, I thought he was solid on the day. Everybody put a lot into the game, just wasn’t our night.

On fans being frustrated and Barnetta’s frustration…

We don’t like to lose. Nobody likes to lose games. So, again if my guys and the fans aren’t disappointed when we lose at home, then something is wrong. Yeah, everybody is frustrated, we’re disappointed. The good news is that we get to go back out on Wednesday against Columbus, and then we have a quick turnaround again, and Kansas City at home to get it right. Again, every point is going to matter, and continue to be aggressive home and away. Yeah, there is frustration, of course, we don’t like to lose. But we still know that we are doing a lot of things the right way and doing a lot of things good. We’ve earned 34 points in this league which is good, and we’ll continue to pick up points down the stretch and get into the playoffs.

Postgame remarks from Tranquillo Barnetta, Keegan Rosenberry, Chris Pontius, Andre Blake and Alejandro Bedoya

Tranquillo Barnetta

On the end of the game frustrations…

It’s hard to stay calm if everything is going against you; it was a little emotional. I thought that it was not a foul and it was a big opportunity for me to steal the ball, and I lost a little bit and, yeah, it happened on the field.

On playing with Bedoya…

Yeah, every minute helps us. Every practice. And we will be better for sure. Tonight was a little bit hard with the lead for Toronto, but we tried, we pushed, and then unfortunately we gave up two goals before halftime, and it was too hard. And they are a good team. Right after halftime, we tried but unfortunately we could not score. It was too hard to come back.

On the second goal that was given up…

It’s always hard, for sure, we have like every guy takes a man, but sometime they block you and I didn’t know what happened. For sure it can happen because he is wide open, and we know they are dangerous on set pieces. But we are disappointed if they make a good play and they score, it’s something else. But usually, we can’t receive goals on restarts.

On Michael Bradley…

Usually, you have a ref to protect you because if they always hit your ankles, it’s hard. That’s how they try to play, they are really physical, and I think we tried to go away from it. But they are a good players, they have a good team. I think we tried, but today it wasn’t enough.

Andre Blake

On Toronto…

Yeah, they are a very good team all around, they have good offense, as you said. For us, it’s more than just one person dealing with one person, it is teamwork. And today I think we lapsed a little bit and we were made to pay for it.

Well it’s tough because coming off arguably the team’s best game and you are kind of on a high.

Yeah, definitely. Jim always tells us in this league you can get too high and you can get too low. I think we went into the game confident but not too confident, and I think it was just one of those nights where nothing was going our way.

On adjustments to continue your push to the playoffs…

Well, we just lost one game, it is just one game. So we have to keep believing in what we are doing and keep fighting and stick together and hopefully we can get it going again.

Keegan Rosenberry

On Toronto offense and how tough they are…

Yeah, I mean, I think it is easy to see the talent they have, the names on their roster that they have, they are talented players they make plays. I think I talked about it before, trying to limit their impact on the game but they make plays. Tonight that got the best of us, but there are some positives to take away from tonight and I think we will build on them for next week.

On the three goals that were given up…

Yeah, I think it is just positioning to prevent the one pass that can break us and we fell asleep a couple of times, but you know, again, I think what’s positive about those is that it’s preventable. We can make adjustments to prevent those kind of things, as opposed to someone scoring a forty yard goal. Again we will take those things away.

On turning around quickly…

I think a little bit, I think we have been a team that puts results behind us when they do not go our way pretty well, and we bounce back well. So yeah, I think we are looking forward to Wednesday.

Chris Pontius

On shaking this one off…

Yeah, we come off of a good match and everything seemed to click last weekend and tonight wasn’t the case. Very dangerous team on the counter attack, and they got us. And I still even look at the second half where we had a couple of opportunities, I have to put away my header, and we could be right back in the game, 3-3. Even allowing that many goals we created our opportunities  ball just did not bounce our way today.

Alejandro Bedoya

On first home game…

Well I thought it was alright, you know in terms of moving the ball, lost a couple balls at times today but I think we gave up some pretty soft goals tonight as a team. But it is just one game. Against New England, it is important we do not get too high when we win a game like that and not get too low when lose a game like this. Toronto beat us on their strong counter attack. Two balls played to their guys like Jozy Altidore and Giovinco, who have so much talent. But they should not be able to score like that. We have to look at things and get over this game and focus and turn around for Columbus and that is good for us.

It was cool. Nice atmosphere, actually. The Sons of Ben, the drum thumping, the crowd chanting, and it is a pretty cool vibe. The fans are pretty close so you can hear a lot and the support was awesome tonight. Unfortunate about the result.”

On playing 90 minutes…

Tired. Yeah, I mean, I did not think I was going to go a full 90 tonight. But the situation of the game, I did. So it’s good I was able to go for 90 and finish up. Hopefully, get rested up and ready for Columbus and keep working.

Toronto FC postgame quotes

Opening statement…

We knew coming here, it was going to be a challenge for us. I have been impressed with, this is our first meeting with them, I have been impressed with that team, with Philly this year, and I think they have a lot good players. So knew this was going to be a challenge.

I thought from our group, I thought we had a pretty solid first half. I thought the ball was moving very quickly, we were finding good spots around the field, creating some opportunities and I thought we were solid in the first half. Second half became a little bit of an exercise in locking it down and seeing if we can come up with something in transition. At the end of the day, anytime you get three points on the road in the league, it’s a good night. So we’ll take that. It’s an important time in the season, where all points matter. We see Philadelphia as a team who is a playoff contender and so it’s good for us to create some separation from them because they have a good side.

On Jozy Altidore getting back into the lineup…

It’s huge for us. Jozy is a big part of our team and he provides us with an outlet, he’s obviously a guy in front of the goal who can create opportunities for himself when he plays big like he did on that goal there. He is also our target if we get out wide and we have to serve, because of his size, in front of the goal. And I think he draws a lot of attention, that allows Sebastian to find that little bit of extra space on the field. And I think they are doing a great job looking for each other and combining with each other.

He is massive and he is probably underrated in terms of the amount of defensive work he gives us as a striker. He does a lot of work, he is responsible and he is always looking for ways he can help out the team. So him coming back, and he is still getting his legs under him a little bit for 90 minutes and today was a little bit more of an open game then the last game he played in. I think from a cardiovascular standpoint, he feels good getting that 90 minutes under his legs and we’re getting there.

On getting three points on the road…

Yeah again, from my perspective and us as team, we think that Philadelphia is one of those teams in the east that is going to be there when it is all said and done and so for us to be able to come here on the road, and the race is pretty tight in the east as well and if we dropped the three points today, they were going to be right on our tail. This is an opportunity that we were able to seize, to create a little bit of distance between us and what I think is a very good team in Philadelphia, and also we harbor some ambition to win the east, it keeps us in touch with New York City right now, who is on top of the east.

Like I said, winning on the road is very difficult in the league. I don’t know how much people really appreciate that, and anytime we can come in and go against a team that is as good as Philadelphia and pick up three points on the road, then you take that every time.

On Daniel Lovitz…

Danny’s great. The problem with Danny is keeping him healthy. Whenever we feel like we’ve got him in a rhythm, he’s taken a couple of injuries, and that’s happened over the last couple years. For us, Danny is a wide player who gives us a nice attacking option. He is able to take people on and beat them, and he’s the best server in from the left side,, and maybe the best crosser on the team in general.

Right now, he was off for a pretty lengthy injury, so we’re just trying to get him re-integrated back into the group. For me, he’s progressing as a player. Where he exactly plays on our team, he gives us some versatility on our team. He plays as a winger, we’re trying to teach him a little on how to play left back. He’s evolving, he’s growing as a player.

Was this a litmus test for your team?

Playing a good team, regardless of where we play is a test. For us, we have a lot of home games, but it’s important not to rely on those home games. A game like today, we were fortunate to get ahead, it’s important to seize those moments and those points. We were able to lock it down with some good defensive play, and some good saves from Alex Bono, by the way. But again, being able to win on the road, or at least draw on the road, is important when it comes to playoff time, and we see Philadelphia as a playoff team. It’s important for us. We don’t want to get lazy because of all the home games we have left. We have a good home record, but that’s not enough for us. We need to try and continue to improve each game.

What do you need to do down the stretch to secure the Eastern Conference title over NYCFC?

I don’t know if we’re in a  two horse race yet. I think more will make it into the race yet, but we’ll see. For us, it’s try to focus on each performance and each game. We know we have home games in front of us, but when you’re in a pretty close race in a pretty tight division, every point matters, and every game matters. I think that’s a mentality that’s crucial for our team. We’ve also, for various reasons, been able to get a lot of guys playing time this year. For injuries, various other reasons, we’ve been able to develop the depth of our roster. Every point matters. Last year we made it to the playoffs for the first time. But that first game we had to win on the road. And we learned a quick lesson that winning a playoff game on the road in a do-or-die situation is not the easiest thing to do. So it’s a mission of ours to try and lock down every point and position ourselves to open our playoff season at home. Our regular season priority is to try and get into home playoff position, and obviously winning the east would be our number one goal.

Toronto FC Attacker Jozy Altidore

On coming back to full fitness…

Yeah, obviously it’s very important to help the team as we get ready to make that push for the playoffs and just being out here, contributing and feeling good, happy, but most importantly we got the three points. Little bit distance now between us and Philly, and we are just trying to get that final push.

On connection with Giovinco…

Yeah, I mean, even before that [injury] I think the best moment we had was our first season together, when we started up together and I feel like we are getting back to it and Seba[stian Giovinco], he is a really great player. I think the team did really good tonight, protecting the lead.

On winning games on the road…

Yeah, it’s huge, and you don’t want to come home to that. We have another home stand coming up and we have a lot of pressure on us to win games and take of things on the road will help us and then we have a great crowd waiting for us at home.

Toronto FC Defender Drew Moor

On overall game…

I think it was some very good finishing. Seba and Jozy with fantastic goals. We started the game really well; I thought the first half was good. But I think it was our work ethic, our commitment, the way we played together as a group. I think the most positive thing I’m taking away from tonight is that nobody in this locker room is completely satisfied with the performance. The result is fantastic, but I think we also feel we have more to offer, our second half performance was not good enough. When you are on the road against the Union and you come in here and win 3-1 and feel like you have more to offer, to me that’s a sign of a team that is committed to go very deep this season.

On facing Eastern Conference 0pponents…

Yeah, I think that has been our mentality in the past month or so, and that has to be our mentality going forward. It’s nothing but Eastern Conference teams from here on out I believe. Teams that are fighting for playoff spots, teams that are close to us in the standings, and we still have a team that we had to catch, that’s in front of us in the East right now. Anytime we can get three points against a Eastern Conference opponent it’s a huge victory right now and certainlyt that’s an extra incentive.

On Will Johnson…

He is a huge member of this team, the energy that he brings, the spots that he finds, the passes that me makes, he is a very good person to have on the field. I feel very confident and safe when he is out there.