Portland Timbers quotes
Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter
On his assessment of the match…
“It’s tough because I thought we were right there to take points out of the game, 0-0 at half. It was a tight game, neither team had a ton of chances. We had a few half chances. They had a few half chances. I thought the first half was a tight game and it wasn’t too surprising and the second half I thought we started the half well and our best period of play was the first 15 minutes. We’re on the ball and we get a great chance to go up in the game and these are the fine lines. We don’t score that and then they come back a couple minutes later and we give up a goal against the run. Obviously, it’s disappointing. I thought it was a poor goal. We’ve had too much of that this year when we’re in position to get a result and we concede a soft goal. But I think what is more disappointing is the response. I was extremely disappointed with what I saw. A few guys hung their heads. I thought mentally and physically we gave them far too much space and I thought it was far too easy for them to score the next three goals. I will never accept that on my watch and that won’t happen again, even if we need to make changes so that won’t happen again. Because, at 1-0 down, we all know you can still get points out of the game and something out of the game. But the response and, I thought, the play and the way that a few guys hung their heads was extremely disappointing and unacceptable."
Portland Timbers midfielder Diego Valeri
Overall thoughts on the match…
“It was a tough result. I think the game changed a lot in 20 minutes. After their first goal, we had a lot of chances and we couldn’t score, and then in 15 minutes everything changed.”
On injuries and looking ahead…
“You always want the same 11. You always want to be in that position. But, sometimes that happens in a long season. I think we have a good team. We have a good enough team to get through that moment, so we will keep working. We have a game in six days on Friday against New York (Red Bulls), so it will be important for us to win the game.”
On scoring his 50th career goal for the Timbers…
“For me, I love this team so I want to help. If those goals and assists help the team, I’m happy. But, like I said, today it wasn’t the best game for us and at the end of the season you can sit down and think about what you did. Now, we need to think about New York.”
Toronto FC quotes
Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney
Talk about how this team can bounce back from disappointing results…
“We have an experienced team, a mature team, we do a good job of cleaning up things that we didn’t do in a previous game and correcting them in the as we get to the next game. In this game it was entirely different from last game, this team likes to attack and they have some very dangerous attackers who are a little bit more consciousness about trying to score goals than they are about defending their goals. This means there are some spaces that you can work over and that you can exploit to create chances, whereas last week there was not much space because they drop back with a lot of numbers, they were deep and there wasn’t a lot of space. Having said that we were able to speed up the game and increase the tempo, build some speed in our attack, different than we were in the last game. We talked about that as a group before we came into this game, about finding the pockets earlier, building some speed into attack, get the timing right and the final passes right. To some extent we did a good job of that in the first half, we let ourselves down in the final action still too many times, we were into some dangerous situations missed the final pass, missed the cross to the area that we needed to get it out to, that was why we didn’t score in the first half. We stuck with it and we’re able to find the goal in the second half and once we got the first one the momentum started to move in our direction. Going back to the question, we learn quickly, we make adaptations quickly we try to focus on things, it helped us to have full week of training together, that helped us a lot.”
On if the result is the perfect way to go into a top of the table clash next week in Chicago…
“Yeah I think so, because we are able to get a big win and a big three points but I think all of us recognize that through moments of the game we kind of let ourselves down. So in a different game on the road, we can’t let ourselves down when we have those opportunities to score goals. We can’t let those moments slide by. So hopefully that keeps us all hungry as we get prepared for an important match on the road next week. But we know on the road you don’t get that many chances that we we’re able to get today. For lack of a better word, we have to be more deadly in those moments that we create for ourselves.”
Toronto FC midfielder Justin Morrow
Thoughts on the game...
“Truthfully, I don’t think we can be happy with the way the game went in the first half. We responded in the second half. We spoke at half time and challenged ourselves to make the killer pass and make the killer play. I think there were a couple plays in the first half where we let ourselves down. Jozy (Altidore) is going to be mad at me for a while about one of those plays. I stepped up in the second half and made some plays and that’s what is important.”
On his role with the team…
“This comes from the coaches and the players. The coaches give me the freedom to get up the field and I’m still diligent in getting back and helping the rest of the defenders out. Doing plays as I can and it has been working so far.”
Notes:
· The Timbers have scored in 12 consecutive matches, which is the longest active streak in MLS.
· Diego Valeri scored his 13th goal of the season, which ranks as the the fourth-most goals in MLS.
· Valeri's goal was the 50th of his Timbers career, placing him one goal behind Fanendo Adi for the most goals in club history across all eras (since 1975).
· Valeri is the 18th player in MLS history to record at least 50 goals and 50 assists.
· Jeremy Ebobisse recorded his second assist of the season.
· Diego Chara notched his first assist of the season. Chara is the 13th different Timbers player with an assist this season.
