Luis Robles got the start in net Saturday for the Red Bulls' 4-1 win over Toronto FC, his first since joining the team in early August. We caught up with Luis following a recent training session at Montclair State University to ask him a few questions about his Red Bulls debut.
How did it feel to get out there at Red Bull Arena for Saturday’s win over Toronto?
Fantastic, especially since we had such a good turnout. I think the entire atmosphere and the mentality within the locker room was great going into the game.
What about the game itself? Minus that one goal, of course…
Yeah, unfortunately my first touch in MLS was picking the ball out of the back of the net (laughs). But I will say this – if those are the goals I give up the rest of my career, I think I can rest easy.
Any jitters in that first start? Did you see anything or do anything that helped put you in the zone?
As a goalkeeper, I think most goalkeepers would attest, whenever the game starts we want to get an early touch. Whether it's a save or a ball played back to them - and of course my first touch was picking the ball out of the back of the net. But I don't think that necessarily threw me off. I think I even chuckled to myself, "OK, welcome to MLS." But at the end of the day my objective is to help the team win. And outside of the goal I felt like I helped organize the defense and if that was my contribution to get three points then I'm very pleased with that.
The team went into the match against Toronto knowing they were facing a team with nothing to lose, but nevertheless three points is pretty crucial at this point in the season.
I think, especially for the team, it was important that we get three points. Going down the end of the season we needed that for position and that was our objective going into the game and I think we fulfilled our objective.
Winding down now into the final weeks of the season, what’s the team’s approach in these final three matches against Chicago, Sporting KC and Philly?
The most important thing we want to do is go into every game with the right mentality. That helps us in the future for our momentum going into the playoffs, but for sure our mentality should just be on the next game. I know that we have three really big games coming up, but of course the next one that is most important is Chicago. The table’s really tight and it seems like it’s a rivalry game and we’re at home. So for our fans, we definitely want to not only have a good performance, but get three points.
