New York Red Bulls head coach Mike Petke
I’m extremely proud of my guys. I told them before the game that there were going to be periods tonight that were not going to be pretty and that I’m absolutely fine with that as long as they put the work in and play for each other. That’s all I wanted, to be honest with you, at the end of the day. I was here the last time we won 10 years ago. I played in that game, so I am extremely proud of them tonight.
This year I thought this was possibly going to be our most difficult game up here – not only were we without players, but they’re a damn good team and they move the ball well. We had a lot of concerns about winning this game, to be honest with you, I don’t know why it’s so difficult to come up here and play. But they got it done tonight, so I am very proud of them.
WATCH: FULL MATCH HIGHLIGHTS
Luis (Robles), like he has all year, has made some key saves for us 100 percent. Obviously I am a little concerned with how we gave up some of the opportunities we did, but it’s a great feeling to know you have someone back there who, 9 out of10 times, feels like he is going to make those saves,
I easily could have put (Ibhabim) Sekagya in the back there, he’s experienced. But there comes a point, and we had a feeling about (Chris) Duvall a couple of weeks ago, and we put him in and he’s done very well with it. We said that, you know what, maybe this is a game for Matt Miazga perhaps – the moment is going to be so grand for him that he’s not going to feel the pressure as a young guy. I think Matt did very well in his debut tonight and I am very proud of him.
I was very positive about our set pieces today. We worked on set pieces and we talked a lot about it over the last couples of weeks and it’s good to see it come together tonight. I thought we could have had two or three goals in open play as well, but New England could have had a handful, three, four, five, as well. It was a very good back and forth game, but at the end of the day, we held on. Perhaps they were a bit unlucky on one or two of them, but I think we were as well, so I am good with the result.
I challenged the guys beforehand, I really wanted them to have a chip on their shoulder. A lot of talk was made about the grass that was put down on Friday here – beautiful sod and the amount of money they paid for it, just to rip it up the next day when we were coming. I don’t blame them at all. Honestly, I would do the same thing if they had an (Thierry) Henry and (Jamison) Olave that would miss it. So I thought about that, but what I challenged these guys, perhaps a little bit of gamesmanship on my part with them, but I said ‘this is what they think of you, you know, they’re really focused on two guys who won’t make it, and they don’t think much of you.’ By all means I’m not saying that that is the reason why we got the result, but I wanted them to have a chip on their shoulder about that, and perhaps they did a little bit.
New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Luis Robles
New England’s good. We read the scouting report; we knew they are a young dynamic team. They have some players who aren’t afraid of taking the ball on. We knew we had to come in with all our effect to hang with them. We got lucky on the first goal which changed the completion of the game and we played solid defense. There weren’t a lot of difficult saves; they were mostly routine because our guys put them in tough spots. I give tons of credit to the defense tonight.
WATCH: ROBLES GOES FULL STRETCH TO PREVENT OWN GOAL
Well lucky we didn’t give Chris (Tierney) a lot of opportunities to cross it in. There was one shot where he knuckled it but I wasn’t going to mess around with it and I popped it over the goal. Just going back to the scouting report we knew these guys were dangerous in several different ways; from crosses to set pieces. It’s not just Chris (Tierney), but Lee (Nguyen) is so dangerous with his foot on set pieces but again our defense stood strong and we got the three points.
First thing is we have a great locker room. Losing four in a row you can start to point fingers at people, but that doesn’t happen here. The guys are very positive, and everyone believes in each other. That’s our belief we knew we could get three points this week and we did. We were lucky to get the first goal which put us in a great spot and we played well after.
New York Red Bulls forward Peguy Luyindula
It’s a big thing (for the New York Red Bulls to win a game before the World Cup break) because we didn’t have a win since like, four or five games. Then to come back to win like this is a huge thing because we’re going to have big break and then we can concentrate for next game to come.
WATCH: LUYINDULA GOAL
It was amazing (having goalkeeper Luis Robles defend) like always. If he wouldn’t be there, maybe we could have conceded this goal – we can’t just put the head down. He did a great job.
It’s a group - it’s a group mentality, so when (Thierry Henry, Jámison Olave, Dax McCarty, Roy Miller and Tim Cahill) are not there, the guys who have to play have to step up on the field and that’s what we did today.
(Matt Miazga’s first career start) was amazing in the building process, in the defending. He was hard on the ball. He was aggressive. It was a huge first game.
