Portland Timbers Quotes
Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter
On the result of the game…
“In this early part of the year, we’ve obviously had to manage some things. We had guys out today, including two of our three DPs. So, we felt like we needed to put out a lineup and plan that would fit this group and this game. We knew New England would have a lot of the ball, so we put a lineup out that could absorb a bit and hit them on the counter. I thought that we were excellent defensively. They had a really tough time creating and breaking us down. Obviously, it’s unfortunate to give up a goal on one of the last plays of the game, but I thought overall the plan was executed very well. We’ll take the point, and we’ll take the positives. I thought we were very solid today. And when you look at the back four and our goalkeeper, Nat Borchers is the only one out of those five guys that played in the championship game, so we’re re-tooling things but we're making progress every week. We have a game on Sunday at home, so we’ll get back to work and focus on that game.”
On Nagbe’s return to the lineup…
“I thought he was very good. You know, it’s a tough field to play on. Obviously, New England are used to playing on it. But, it’s difficult field to play on and I thought it hurt our passing and ability to counter as well as we usually do a little bit. But, we know New England are a good side, a lot better than their record. And, we knew that they were a team that will really keep the ball. But, we felt that we could use that against them by opening them up on the counter. We also knew we needed to be very organized on the defensive end. Again, I thought that it was a very good defensive game. It will be nice to hopefully have Liam Ridgewell and Diego Valeri back for the next game.”
On the team’s defensive performance despite the lineup changes…
“Yeah, like I said, I think we have to take the positives. We have to keep building. As much as we wanted to roll last year into this year, it’s not worked out that way. As I mentioned, over half of the team today was new, and we are making progress. We had a good result against San Jose, and for me this was a good result on the road. Although, when you give up a late goal, you feel like you’ve dropped some points, but we still feel like this is a good result and we’re starting to make progress with the new guys. You know, it takes time for them to get comfortable. So, because of injuries, it’s felt a little bit more like a rebuild in this early stage of season but once we get guys healthy and others keep settling it will all come together."
On Barmby’s potential…
“Yeah, I think the thing that we have to realize is that he’s a young kid. He’s 21-years-old. And, you know, he’s learning. But, he took the goal pretty well. It was a little bit lucky, but he was in the right spot. Overall, his technique was pretty good on the play. But, on the other end, he made a mistake that cost us. So, with young players, you take the good and the bad, and he’ll learn from it and grow. We have a pretty young attacking team. You look at Adi, he’s 25. Nagbe is 25, Mattocks is 25. Lucas Melano is 23 and so is Jack McInerney. So, we have a really young attacking group that we’re really excited about. That’s one of the reasons why we went with McInerney and Adi up front in the 4-4-2. They both are in form and without Valeri, we just felt that with the personnel that we had, we needed to adjust our system. And, that’s not something that I normally like to do, but with losing so many guys, we felt we had to do that. We also don’t prefer to absorb as much as we did today, but I think it’s a real credit to the guys that they can execute that plan and do something that we’re not used to doing to get a result. When we have everybody back and healthy, we’ll look to keep the ball up the pitch and get back to playing the way we prefer to play”
On Nat Borcher’s steadiness…
“Yeah, although the attacking guys are young, we have some really experienced, veteran players. Nat Borchers, as you said, and Jermaine Taylor have been in this league a long time. Not to mention Jack Jewsbury and Diego Chara, and I thought all of those guys were excellent. Even the outside backs, Alvas is out but Zarek stepped in and did a nice job. I think Klute is really playing well so we’re making progress and we’ll continue to get better."
Portland Midfielder/Defender Jack Barmby
On scoring only few minutes going into the game:
“Coming in as a sub, it’s hard to get the intensity straight away, but fortunately, the ball fell to D [Darling Nagbe], he chipped it over the defender’s head when I saw it. I didn’t get the cleanest contact but it was probably most effective. If I would have hit it cleanly I probably would have missed. It was good to see it go in.”
On scoring his first MLS goal:
“I thinks it’s vital that it get it off as soon as you can, get off the mark as soon as you can. Hopefully, many more to come.”
Portland Timbers Defender Zarek Valentin
On the tie:
“Obviously, we wish we would have held on to the three points. I think if you ask most teams around the league, you would take a point on the road after flying cross-country. You have to keep it in perspective. It’s not an easy place to play in, obviously. Their attacking group is very creative and can make things happen. You have to keep building on the positives. You have a quick turnaround, which is the best thing for us right now.”
New England Revolution Head Coach Jay Heaps
On the final 20 minutes of play that led to the tying goal:
"Obviously frustrated that we’re playing well through the middle to the middle third of the field. The final third, we’re just a little bit off. We’re trying to do a little too much, but I just think there was some resilience. I’m proud of the way the guys fought because it wasn’t a lack of effort or energy. It was a little bit of energy. We needed a little bit more energy, but it wasn’t effort. Guys were working really hard. They really go down and get one chance and score. Credit [Darlington] Nagbe. I thought that was a fabulous ball that he delivered to the back post, but other than that, there wasn’t much there. Everything that they got was from our mistakes. So we have to be diligent in that, but we just got to keep going at it. It’s not one of those things where we can hold our heads down. We got to lift ourselves up and get after another game with a quick turnaround.”
On the message to the team at halftime:
“Exactly not to let a counter attack goal happen. It’s just that we talked about it. We work on that because we know right now teams are really starting to sit in on us. I think I’ll take those chances, if we’re going to give one or two chances to a team against us in a game. I think they had one shot on goal. I didn’t look at the stats yet, or two at the end. When that happens, for me, we have to be diligent not to over commit guys, but to layer ourselves. That was the conversation at halftime and we didn’t do a great job on that one play, but the idea was to go out and give everything we had. You saw at the end. We were going for three points. Even after we scored, we were trying to get everyone forward to get three points. We didn’t get the three like we talked about at halftime and leading up to this game, but a quick turnaround. We have to get three on Saturday.”
New England Revolution Defender Donnie Smith
On the team’s performance and earning a single point:
“Obviously, you want to take three points at home, but as you guys saw in the game, we obviously peppered them with crosses, shots. It’s just a matter of time until you get one or two and the floodgates open. I think everyone will see a lot more goals out of us.”
On the challenges of playing against Portland:
“We worked on our early balls in practice, and I think for the most part, we got a lot of early balls in. They dealt with them well. Maybe a couple times here or there, we should put a little bit deeper so they are running more towards the goal, could result in an own goal. They did a good job sitting back and countering us.”
- Midfielder Darlington Nagbe is the only Timbers player to record at least a goal or an assist in each of the club's six seasons in MLS.
- Nagbe has 21 assists for Portland, ranking as the second-most since the club joined MLS in 2011 and the seventh-most across all eras in Timbers history (since 1975).
- Fanendo Adi played his 65th regular-season match for the Timbers, which places him in a tie for ninth place for the most MLS games played for the Timbers.
- For the third consecutive match, a Portland player recorded a goal within two minutes of entering the game.
- For the first time since Aug. 24-Sept. 13, 2014, a substitute has scored in three consecutive games for Portland.
- Timbers midfielder Jack Barmby recorded his first career-goal for the club, becoming the 39th Timber to score in MLS play.
- Barmby is the second Timbers player born in 1994 or later to score a goal for the Timbers, joining defender Alvas Powell.
- The Timbers have scored 11 second-half goals this season, which is the most in MLS in 2016.
- Goalkeeper Jake Gleeson started his first MLS regular-season match since April 17, 2011.
- Both of Jake Gleeson’s starts in MLS play have occurred on the road against New England.
