New York Red Bulls head coach Jesse Marsch
JESSE MARSCH: I felt like we dominated every single statistical category. It's a weird sport that way, where I don't know how many other sports there are where you can dominate so much and not be victorious, but that's what our sport is.
Both games were under control, I thought. Obviously once it gets to be 1-0 here at home and now your aggregate is two and you're chasing the game with the road goal, then that whole thing goes haywire. But yeah, I felt good about our tactics. I felt good about our approach, and we just weren't good enough in the series to capitalize on our advantages, and we let -- if I go through the whole series and think of how many good chances we gave up until it became 2-0, there's certainly not many.
It's very disappointing. I'll tell you, I'm gutted for my team, my staff, my organization and my fan base, because everybody has poured their hearts into this. You know, I feel a big sense of disappointment in our inability to win the Cup, period. We feel like we've had two great seasons here, but in the end, we're walking away empty-handed. It's a hard feeling to swallow.
Q. Coming into the series, you had been unbeaten in 20 straight matches. What changed? What didn't you do the same, or what was the cause for it?
JESSE MARSCH: I don't know. I don't know. We dried up. I don't know why. I don't know how. We had the game under control. Again, every statistical category was in our favor. Listen, they fouled us like crazy in this series, which makes it hard to find a rhythm, I guess, but I don't know why. I don't know why.
Q. You know that there's going to be some second-guessing about the style of high press in general in playoffs and whether these teams that come in here and play as cautiously and eight behind the ball and then counter, we've been through this before; do you at all think you're going to reexamine that?
JESSE MARSCH: No, we won't reexamine that at all. In fact, both games were on our terms, and if we're sharp around the goal and finish chances in both games, this series honestly could have been handled fairly easily, and it wasn't. It wasn't. We just weren't able to capitalize on situations.
No. I mean, listen, this is who we are. This is what this club is now. I don't think there's -- it's bigger than me. It's bigger than anybody. It's not like I'm -- right now everything that's been built in this club in the last two years I think has laid a foundation for great success moving forward. You know, the ultimate reward is MLS Cup, and we haven't -- for whatever reason, this club has struggled to get over that hump, and that part is disappointing.
But we all know we're on the right path. That's for sure.
Q. Sacha takes the shot to the face and then he's on the sideline for 12 minutes. You kept looking over at him, about 12 minutes it was. How excruciating was that?
JESSE MARSCH: Well, it's a weird game where we missed the penalty, then you had 12 minutes of playing a man down and waiting to get Sacha back on the field, and then pushing the game again in the second half, and then all of a sudden one mistake and then we're chasing in a big way.
Weird night. One of the weirdest nights I've been a part of here at Red Bull Arena, that's for sure, and it just felt like we were fighting a lot of different things and weren't able to make our own history. Then again, I take responsibility. I feel a huge sense of disappointment. I'm gutted for this entire organization because there's so many good people here that have put their faith and trust in me to help lead this to somewhere new, and we're hopeful to get it there eventually, but I'm really disappointed for all these people.
Q. Do you feel the penalty that was saved on Sacha, do you think that changed the game?
JESSE MARSCH: Well, I'll tell you this: If it gets scored, it changes the game. That's the reality. If the penalty gets scored, then everything changes. I still felt like even a man down, we were waiting for Sacha to get back on the field, we still had control of the match. The biggest game-changing moment is their goal because then it means that we're just chasing in such a big way. Incredible. Incredible to walk away from this series empty-handed. Incredible.
Q. As far as your identity and knowing how you play and all that, that's going to continue. In a funny way were the Impact the worst possible team you could faced given that they play that counter-attacking style so well?
JESSE MARSCH: Well, when you go down on them -- so like let's just say we score -- let's say Brad scores his early one there, right. Then we go up a goal, and it means that now they've got to come out of their defensive shell and they've got to try to find chances and create something. Then that's the way that this series can be more put on our terms, but yeah, I mean, when we're down basically the whole series and trying to fight back and now they're just hanging on and waiting to counter, it makes it a very dangerous game. That's why -- listen, that's why our tactical approach was so cautious, was because we didn't want to put ourselves in this situation, and to be fair, I think the game plan and everything that was laid out was there for us, we just weren't able to make plays.
Q. You guys were able to hold over a lot of key pieces from this team last year. Trials and tribulations, you guys end up at the top of the Eastern Conference. All things said and done, do you think this is a successful season?
JESSE MARSCH: It's tough to judge right now. I mean, there's so many emotions that are racing through my head, based on, again, my disappointment for letting everyone down.
You know, we're going to have to get over this and figure out a way because we've got CONCACAF next year. We're going to have a good team again next year. It's just so hard when you put so much into it for a calendar season and come up empty. It makes it hard to digest at the moment. So time will heal, but it's hard for me to measure those things right now.
New York Red Bulls Midfielder Dax McCarty
On whether it was a tactical or execution problem:
I think Montreal made plays when they needed to make plays. Look at the series, in the first game they had two chances, Mancosu buries basically a half chance, and we miss three or four good opportunities. We come home and we miss a couple opportunities to make it back in the game, and then Piatti scores a great goal. They made plays in the boxes and we didn’t. It’s pretty simple
On the winning streak vs. these two games:
We didn’t score goals. In the 20-game unbeaten streak you’re finishing your chances, and creating chances and keeping things tight in the back. In this series, we let four or five plays get away from us and Montreal was clinical. Credit to them, they created very little and they scored three out of the five or six chances they had and we scored one out of the 20-25 we had. When you don’t take advantage of the chances you get, that’s a recipe for failure.
On the missed penalty:
It didn’t affect us at all. These things happen, you put a lot of money on Sacha burying chances like that and unfortunately Bush guessed right and made a great save. Penalties are a crapshoot so, we were fully confident we were going to come out and have Sacha’s back and get a goal but they scored first. Again, I don’t think they had much the entire game and then Piatti gets the ball and he makes something happen. We failed to defend it properly and he buries it.
New York Red Bulls midfielder Sacha Kljestan
On the nose injury sidelined him in the first half:
I took one to the nose and it wouldn’t stop bleeding for about five minutes there. It was getting pretty close to whether I wanted to get taken out of the game or stay in, I was doing my best to let them know that I wanted to stay in the game and finally we got a little bit of the bleeding to stop. It was coming down my throat so that was the difficult part. I get an X-ray in the morning.
On how his injury happened:
I’m not sure how it happened, I went up for a header with Donadel and I tried to get body position on him and I think his arm just flung up. I don’t know if it was an elbow or not, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal at the time until I felt the blood and obviously it just wouldn’t stop bleeding.
On his penalty attempt:
We’ve been practicing them all week, obviously when you’re a normal PK taker you start to take a lot of penalties and goalies start to watch all of the penalties that you have taken. I think being good at them is being able to shoot to each corner and also shoot down the middle. This week when I was working on them I made it up in my mind that if I got one I was going to shoot it hard to the left side and unfortunately I think that I lifted it too much so that it was at the perfect height for him to save it.
On what made the difference in the series:
Goals. That was it. I think we probably dominated in every category except for goals in this series so to come away with one goal in two games is not enough for us. We are typically a higher scoring team, the chances were there, possession was there, being dangerous was there, and just the goals weren’t there.
New York Red Bulls Goalkeeper Luis Robles
On today’s match:
We had full belief that we were going to get a result, and we played pretty well, and unfortunately we didn’t get a result, and that belief in one another in the second half of the season is what made us think that we were going to advance today. I’m just at a loss for words.
On the goal from Piatti:
It knuckled a little bit, and I reacted to the ball, and even when it went back, I thought that I had enough to save it, but when I looked back and saw it went in, I was really surprised. At the end of the day, we talk a lot about our individual matchups. We look across the field at the person that is playing our position, and try to outplay them, and when you look at this series, I got outplayed.
On his reaction to the loss:
Right now it hurts, and I know the guys are very emotional. I was very emotional after the game. You work so hard all season, to put yourself in a good position like this. You really believe that everything is in place: the understanding, the clarity, the tactics, the work rate, the commitment, everything we talk about was there, but at the end of the day, we just didn’t make plays, and they made plays, and this is why we’re out and they will continue to march on towards the cup.
New York Red Bulls Midfielder Mike Grella
Montreal head coach Mauro Biello
Q. That save that Evan Bush made, what did that do for your team?
MAURO BIELLO: Yeah, I think it was a key moment in the game. You know, Evan came up big there, and the momentum started to shift our way, and the longer this game went with them without scoring, the more it was going to tilt to our advantage, and that's what ended up happening in the second half. We got a break, Nacho -- what can I say? To me he's one of the best players in the league, and again, he showed it tonight. Big moment, big situation, scores two goals, and now we advance.
Q. With the break now, how do you keep the momentum going? And the stuff that happened with Didier, in a funny way has that helped the team kind of come together?
MAURO BIELLO: Yeah, I think in the end, I know there's the break coming up now, and we've got maybe 14 days between the next game. It's about resting, recovering for sure, and getting guys healthy at 100 percent because there's some guys there with some knocks that they're playing with, if we're able to do that, and then slowly ramp up the workload and get us ready for the next game.
I mean, with Didier, look, he came in, was a professional, did his job, made the difference. The team rallied around it, and now we're in the Conference Finals.
Q. What do you say to fans about going through this roller coaster ride?
MAURO BIELLO: I'd say, look, in the end, we know how hard it is to win games in this league and how hard it is to advance and how hard it is to win playoff games. Our fans have been there all year. We've had so many sellouts crowds this year. They've been behind us. The team went through a little bit of a bump, and we were able to come together again at the end and show the type of character we have and the talent we have in this team, and I'm so proud for the fans to be able to celebrate this moment with their team, because it is their team, and in the end, you play for your fans, and their support they give day in and day out is a reflection of the effort of my team tonight.
Q. Did you watch the penalty kick or did you look away?
MAURO BIELLO: I was pretty happy when he made that save. Look, this is the game. Sometimes we got that break and he makes that save, and I think it rallied the team after that.
Q. What did it mean personally to you to have Didier?
MAURO BIELLO: Well, what Didier did is exactly what I was hoping, to come into the game and bring that, and he plays the killer pass that eliminates the New York Red Bulls. In the end, Didier has won at every level, and to have him come in, it could only help this team.
Q. You're into an Eastern Conference Final, first time in franchise history. Just from your facial expression, you're very businesslike right now. How do you feel right now?
MAURO BIELLO: Yeah, look, in the end, I'm proud of my team. I'm proud of the way we played. I'm proud of the commitment that we put, and we knew it was going to be hard here. We knew that playing the Red Bulls, they're probably the best team in the league.
But I'm proud of them that they stuck to what we wanted to achieve, and in the end, it paid off, and now we move forward.
Q. What did you see as the Red Bulls' weaknesses and how did you exploit them?
MAURO BIELLO: Well, I think one of the things we wanted to exploit was to take advantage of our speed against their defense. They like to push the fullbacks up and leave their centerbacks in the back with Dax, and we wanted to take advantage of that on the break, and we did in today's game.
If we could liberate their press and make that extra pass at midfield, I think it would give them trouble in switching the point of attack. They're a good team on the ball. We were able to close down the middle. We thought if we closed down the middle, it would be hard for them. They'd have to go around us, and in the end, I think we frustrated them by doing so.
Q. Apparently there's some venues you haven't been able to win on the road at, and finally you did. What's it like to finally get a victory on the road here at Red Bull Arena, especially in the playoffs?
MAURO BIELLO: Yeah, it's a great feeling. I think we lost all seven games that we've played here in the past, and to come out of here in a crucial game and to win, this is fantastic. It's fantastic for my group, who now believes that we can take on any team in this league, and this is the momentum that we want. This is the cohesion that we want, and with this result, it'll help us move forward.
Q. You've lost the last seven games you've played here; does it feel like there's a sense of destiny about this Montreal team?
MAURO BIELLO: You know, this game is so unpredictable. As coaches, we try to put our players in the best conditions and try to prepare them for every scenario, and sometimes you can't. It's about making some plays, and today we were able to make those plays. Evan Bush comes up big and makes the play, Nacho puts it in with a great shot with his left foot, and in the end, I think in playoffs, you have to step up your game and be able to make those plays.
For us going forward now, whoever we meet, I don't know the score in that game, we need to continue to grow as a team because there's still things we need to do better if we want to win the MLS Cup, and it's about working hard and staying focused on what we can control.
Montreal Impact Goalkeeper Evan Bush
On the penalty kick:
I decided as I saw what I was looking for, but typically he actually goes to the goalkeeper’s left, about 75 percent of the time so I took a chance, took a gamble and went to the other side and it paid off.
On the rollercoaster ride this season for the fans:
I think we’ve all just waited for this time of year. We have a group that has been through big moments, last year we went through the Champions League, the playoffs, and a lot of the same guys are here. We have a veteran group that bided our time, went through adversity this year, a lot of confidence was shaken, and now we’re a dangerous club.
On what the defender said to you after the save:
Yeah, they were excited, the ball didn’t go out so they were coming, crossing the ball in while guys were running towards me to celebrate so it was kind of an iffy moment. You don’t have any time to celebrate or relax so it was a good one and when we got the first goal we were able to breathe a little bit and it got a little bit easier.
On having Didier Drogba on the bench:
It’s massive, even just seeing the third goal, second goal I should say, a guy like him draws so much attention that they had three guys running towards him, he slips a ball for an easy goal. Not only that, it gave me another guy to play goal kicks to. It gave us a guy to sit and defend with us a little more, set pieces and all that. He’s obviously a huge part of what we’re doing and what we’re going to do.
Montreal Impact Forward Dominic Oduro
On Piatti not getting nominated for league MVP:
I think the league made a huge mistake. I don’t think I’m the only person that thinks that. I think people around the league think he’s one of their snubs, but the league will do whatever they want to do. The players just have to play. Piatti is our playmaker. He was probably man of the match today, aside from [Evan Bush]. We just have to focus, at the end of the day, on our team right now. They did not nominate him, but we nominate him as our best player.
On the team’s momentum heading into the next round:
We talked about this last week, and I said ‘forget about all of the games we’ve played, it’s different in the playoffs.’ It’s a different shift, it’s a different momentum, a different mindset. Since we played D.C., we’ve been playing really well, and we’ve been doing that in every game that we’ve played. Our mindset is really good, we are very committed, and we know we have something good going, and we’re just trying to ride it out.
On the penalty kick save:
A part of me was praying a little. I think we were the better team, so I was like ‘God, don’t let us go down like that,’ so you have to give kudos to [Evan Bush]. I said that our season shifted when [Evan Bush] made that save against San Jose, and I’ll say it again, [Evan Bush] really saved us. I think today he did a great job so it’s all good, and at the end of the day, you just need to focus on the next day.
