Portland Timbers head coach Giovanni Savarese
On what the team can take away from the performance…
“We knew these 12 games away from home were going to be difficult, especially coming to places like this. It was their home opener, there was excitement. And sometimes there are moments in the game that don’t go our way. We also have to be realistic in the sense that it was not good enough. It’s not good enough from the sense that we gave up too many goals and we need to be better. We need to continue to work. We need to continue to have a belief. This is not what we want to represent for our fans and we are not happy and we cannot live on what we did last year. We have to make sure that we do things this year and unfortunately today was not a good day for us and we have to figure things out. It’s unfortunate also that it’s another game where we go down to 10 men. Those are situations I think that go beyond our control and it’s unfortunate, but that’s not the reason that we lost 3-0. We need to be better in many areas.”
On keeping the group fighting forward despite not getting results in the early going…
“I think that our first victory should have been Colorado. We shouldn’t have left that open for a tie. That should have been already. So we need to be better. We need to make sure we have a little more belief. We need to make sure that we put together a better performance and I think that we had very good moments against LAFC. We had very good moments against Colorado. Today maybe a little bit less. Maybe in the moment we had our best momentum is when the goalkeeper made some very key saves, but we cannot allow three goals in a game.”
Portland Timbers goalkeeper Jeff Attinella
On his takeaways from the game…
“I just think that as a team we could probably take away that it is a little bit of a gut check time. This obviously isn’t the way we wanted the season to start, but at the end of the day we are dealing with adversity right now. Our team is going to come together. Luckily we have that bye week coming up, so the team can kind of regroup a little bit and get this thing turned in the right direction.”
On what the team needs to do to get better on the defensive side of the ball…
“We’ve got to just dig in. We’ve got to watch the film. We’ve got to learn from these mistakes that keep happening. For me personally, the first thing I can do is look in the mirror and see what I can do better. Maybe I can do better organizing, do things to prevent these balls from coming in. And I think as a team it’s just about being on the same page. These runners sneaking in between, maybe it’s a lack of communication. Maybe it’s guys losing their marks a little. The first thing for every one of us is looking in the mirror and figuring out what we can do to make the team a little bit better and get this team trending in the right way.”
FC Cincinnati head coach Alan Koch
On tonight’s win…
“Very proud of our club and our city and all the players. I think we all know this club has worked incredibly hard to get where we are today, and I think the players showed their willingness to sacrifice for the team and they deserve to get the three points tonight.”
On foreseeing tonight’s performance…
“No, I hate to disappoint you, but no, we have worked incredibly hard and you can see from the first game the disappointment in Seattle. I think we were very disappointed with the performance, and honestly the result out there, we worked incredibly hard to prepare ourselves for Atlanta. I think we took an element of gratification by getting a point on the road and we’ll take a lot of gratification out of the performance tonight and the result. I’m glad we could reward the city and our fans, in a game that was very, very special to this community with a great performance and honestly a huge three points. Our fans are the reason why we are where we are today, and I’m glad we could give them that sort of performance.”
FC Cincinnati defender Mathieu Deplagne
On his goal…
“It was perfect, perfect night for the team. The crowd was perfect and the fans in the stadium pushed the group to be good and be perfect. So far, it’s good, and for me, personally, my first goal in the US and MLS and Cincinnati, it’s perfect.”
On atmosphere at Nippert…
“Yeah, because at home you have to be good and to take points. The crowd helped us today and for the next game at home, I think it will be the same atmosphere. For our first MLS game here, was a perfect ending.”
Notes:
- Claude Dielna, Cristhian Paredes and Bill Tuiloma made their season debuts in the match.
- Dielna made his Timbers debut in the match.
- Diego Valeri played in his 200th MLS match Portland (regular season and playoffs).
- Dairon Asprilla, Dielna, Lucas Melano, Paredes and Tuiloma all earned their first start of the season.
- In the 44-year history of the Timbers, Nippert Stadium is the 106th different visiting stadium the club has played a league match in.
- FC Cincinnati is the 107th different team to the Timbers have played since the club’s founding in 1975.
