Portland Timbers Quotes
Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter
Overall thoughts on the match…
“It’s very disappointing. Obviously, this game, the performance was not good enough. Defensively, we leaked goals. Obviously, without Ridgewell or Chara you could see we were missing some quality. Guys needed to step up and they didn’t. We had some guys that had some really poor performances, and it's difficult to win when you get that. But, for me, it’s the defensive side where I was most disappointed because I just felt like we bled goals. Every time Vancouver were in our half it seemed to be in the back of the net. It’s not just the back four. It starts with front guys and on the wings. The first two goals were from wide positions. We gave the ball away in a bad spot for both of the first two goals, and then we didn’t defend. We’ve asked our wingers to defend, and on those first two goals they didn’t do it. We’ve struggled with that all season long. If you can’t defend 2v2 in this league on the flanks, you’re going to be vulnerable and we were. Obviously, there were some turning points that maybe could’ve changed the game. At 1-0, we could have walked the ball in the goal and now we’re 1-1. Obviously, the decision of the official, not to give a red, I’m sure that would be a retroactive red, which will be our fifth or sixth of the year. So, those are factors in the game. But, when I look at the overall performance, I didn’t think we were good. I didn’t think we defended well, and I felt we got some surprisingly poor performances out of some of our key guys and some of the depth pieces that we had to plug in with some of the absences that we had. When you look at the last two games, our Champions League game on Wednesday and this game, we had two key guys out in both of those games, and I think that sums up our season. On Wednesday, Adi, Valeri out and when we needed some of our depth to step up and get the job done. This game, Chara and Ridgewell out, we needed our depth to step up and get the job done and they didn’t. So, when I look at the season, we had injuries but for me it was more about the depth because you have to be able to manage a season with injuries. Everybody gets them. If you don’t have depth that can get the job done when called upon, you’re going to struggle to win games. I thought most of those situations happened on the road when we lost guys and that led to us not being good on the road. When we had the group put together, mostly at home, obviously we were very good. But, four or five weeks ago I basically said, ‘This is our top lineup,’ and we played that lineup three times and won all three games. The other three games we weren’t able to play our top lineup and we lost. So, what do you blame it on? Do you blame it on injuries? I blame it on depth because, ultimately, you have to have a good enough bench to get the job done, regardless of injuries, and I think Wednesday and today is a bit of the story of the season.”
On takeaways from this season going into next season…
“Yeah, there has to be some long, hard discussions, and reflection, on what went wrong. It’s a combination of things. But, for me, there were holes in the team. Some of those holes started with cap-related issues. Some of those holes were compounded with injuries. It put pressure on the bench to perform. But, we dealt with holes all season long in the squad, and those holes led to inconsistent lineups and lack of continuity, which meant inconsistency in performance and chemistry. We need to correct that now. The real challenge is to correct that, if you immediately look at recruitment and new players, that can then lead to more chemistry issues. So, I think we have to be smart in looking at the roster. We do have a very good core group of guys, but there will definitely be some players who were on the fringe of being starters and guys that were on the bench that we’re going to need to look long and hard at and make some tough decisions on because that, for me, is where we fell short. Obviously, you hope that you don’t have to deal with as many situations over the course of the season where you have as many guys out like we did but if you do we have to be better prepared. So, I’m never at the end of the season going to say ‘Listen, tough season. It was injuries.’ You have to be prepared with a good bench. We lost some key guys after winning the championship and some of the new guys were put under some pressure early on to get the job done, and they didn’t always do that. So, another year, will they? Those are things that we have to look at. But, we’re definitely very disappointed in the season, and there is going to be some reflection and some correction. There will be some changes, certainly, and there’s going to be some soul searching. But, my job, Gavin’s (Wilkinson) and Merritt’s (Paulson) starts today. It doesn’t make the offseason easy. It makes it harder, so we have to look at those things and reflect on everything, evaluate everything and make those corrections to have a better season next year.”
On if he was surprised with how the Timbers started the game…
“I thought the first 10 minutes we were OK. But, we made some bad mistakes, like I said, especially wide early on where we just gave them corner kicks, which is never what you want. We gave up four corners in the first 15 minutes or so, and that kind of sends a little bit of a funk in your team. It gives them a little bit of hope and life. But, I think if you watch it again, the first 10 minutes, we looked up for it but it just looked like we made a few mistakes early. I did think guys in the back looked very nervy for whatever reason. You give the ball away or you kick it out of bounds for a corner, it kind of gave Vancouver some energy. But, I look at the first two goals and they’re not good goals. They’re soft goals. That’s been the story of the year. Defensively, we’ve not been good enough, absolutely not. Obviously, Ridgewell out, is that a factor? Chara out. Nat Borchers out. Jorge Villafana leaving, of course it is. But, we have to figure it out, and we have to correct it. Those are things we’re going to have to look at in the offseason along with better depth in a few other positions."
Portland Timbers midfielder Jack Jewsbury
On the key to today’s loss…
“It’s tough talking about it, to be honest. I don’t think the start was good enough. They came out, they were flying. We had a few early giveaways that were just a bit sloppy coming out of the gate. We continue to talk about that first goal and how important it is, and we let them get it. The start, first and foremost, wasn’t good enough.”
On the turning point of the match…
“All over the field, we were not good enough. You could point to a number of things, and they could probably have changed the game. I didn’t have a good angle of the [Kendall] Waston foul on Adi, so I don’t even know how that looked like to comment on it. Obviously, that chance at that point of the game, to get back to even would’ve been huge. But we had other chances to during the game in that first half even though we didn’t feel like we came out and played the way we should’ve.”
On the team’s road results vs. its home form in 2016…
“That will be the big one for the group next year, it’s how you’re more consistent. The group still is confident. When you give up that first goal, especially on the road, it’s tough. That will probably be the main thing. We’ve won more games than we’ve ever had at home, which kept us in things, but the road form has to get better if we want to be in the playoffs.”
Portland Timbers forward Fanendo Adi
On the outlook coming into the match…
“Obviously for us, we came here try to win. We knew it would be tough because, of course, they were not just going to come out and give us the game. We didn’t know the outcome was going to be like this. It’s a very disappointing one. It was a sad one. We just have to look forward to the next season.
On the tough season…
“We had a lot of injuries. I think every player was out this season for at least one game because of injuries or cards or stuff like that. Our season has been really rough for us. It’s a tough one for us.”
Vancouver Whitecaps FC quotes
Vancouver Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson
On the result…
“As happy as I am today for the supporters, because they stuck with us, I said pregame to them you find out about true fans, real fans, when things are going tough. Not when the good times are there and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. I asked the players to put on a performance for the fans and try and get those three goals back to win that trophy for the supporters. Did I think we could do it? I did. I had a feeling we could do it. Consistency during the season showed me we probably weren’t going to do it. But they answered and they got what we deserved in the end which was a very, very good performance, and a victory, and obviously managed to win the Cascadia Cup for our supporters.”
On knocking out Portland Timbers out of the playoff race…
“Listen, I’ve got a lot of respect for Caleb [Porter] and Portland as an organization, and it’s a game of football. You know, we got knocked out of the playoffs last year by Portland who went on to win MLS Cup and I give them a lot of credit for that. It wasn’t about that, it was about us, me and my players, and about us saying thank you to our fans. And unfortunately for Portland, they were in the way, and that was it. There wasn’t a hidden agenda to try and knock Caleb and Portland out because I’ve got too much respect for them.”
On taking positives out of ending the season on a high note…
“I do, without a doubt. When you have a difficult run, and we have had a difficult run, there’s no hiding from anyone. We have to be open and honest, and I am, my players are. It’s important that you salvage something out of it and what we’ve managed to salvage this year, from a difficult season, is Champions League football, as number one seed, which is a great achievement for us, and also winning the Cascadia Cup. We were five seconds away from winning the Amway Canadian Championship and we were two wins away from getting into the playoffs, and if we had gotten two extra wins, and if we would have held on for five seconds, everyone would have said it’s an unbelievable season. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen and it’s been a difficult year, but a lot of learning has been taken onboard by me and my coaches, and hopefully by my players as well. So yes, there are a lot of positives to take out of it but there’s also a bit of honesty as well, and we haven’t been quite good enough on a consistent basis to get into the playoffs, but there’s a number of other teams that haven’t either.”
On aspects of today’s game that were most pleasing…
“All week, I challenged my players to work and play with energy. We’ve got a young group of players. With youth and enthusiasm comes hunger. We will focus more on that next year as well. We’ll continue to build what we’re doing. I wanted them to make an uncomfortable afternoon for Portland because they’re already a good team. They’re not MLS Cup champions from last year for no reason. They’ve got fantastic players. Their players have stepped up a lot of the time this season. I wanted them to feel uncomfortable. That’s credit to the players and we managed to get the result. It’s probably the intensity with which we played.”
On Giles Barnes scoring two goals…
“Giles is a great character, he really is. If you play Giles up front and he doesn’t get a shot, he wants to play wide left. If you play him wide left and he doesn’t get a touch, he wants to play centre-forward. A bit like Kekuta Manneh. I just told him to be positive. He was playing against his friend Alvas Powell, who’s a fantastic player as well. I thought we could cause him problems by focusing on certain areas. Credit to Giles, he took it onboard and he’s done it. Today, he exploded so there are a lot of positives for Giles.”
On Pedro Morales’ performance…
“Pedro was great. I can’t fault any of our players today, I really can’t. I thought we played with energy, enthusiasm, will and desire. We haven’t done that enough times this year, which is why we are where we are. Pedro gets a goal and puts on a very good performance, a really solid performance. It was enjoyable to watch him. He enjoyed playing in the game. He got tired towards the end, and scored a fantastic goal. He should be proud of his performance.”
Vancouver Whitecaps FC forward Giles Barnes
On how good that team can be next season…
“We were on a little bit of a low. I think the confidence was low. When we score first, there’s no team better than us in the league. We need to keep that mentality going through when we go down a goal, whether it takes us a while to score. Our team is littered with very gifted players that work really hard. I think everyone should be excited for what can happen next year. I’m glad the fans got to see that level of performance today.”
On Pedro Morales’ performance…
“It was good for Pedro to score in the last few games. He’s the captain of the club. The passion is always there. It’s great for him to end the season with a goal. I’m very happy for him.”
Vancouver Whitecaps FC goalkeeper David Ousted
On today’s win…
“I knew we had it in us. Obviously, it’s too late. I’m delighted to give the fans a last victory and get them the Cascadia Cup, and show that we are better than how we performed this year.”
On Pedro Morales’ performance…
“I thought he was fantastic today. The goal was brilliant and I thought he played really well today.”
Notes
- Diego Valeri scored his 14th goal of the season for the Timbers, which is a career high for the midfielder. Valeri concludes the season tied for the eighth-most goals scored in MLS this season.
- With Valeri's finish, Portland is the 10th team in MLS history to have multiple players score 14 or more goals in the same season with forward Fanendo Adi (16) and Valeri (14) accomplishing the feat.
- With four chances created in the match, Valeri finishes 2016 with 89 chances created, the second-highest total in MLS behind only New York Red Bulls midfielder Sacha Kljestan.
- Jake Gleeson finished the season with 112 saves, which is tied for third-most in 2016.
- Jack Jewsbury played in his 157th regular-season match for Portland, ranking as the fourth-most matches played in Timbers history across all eras of the club (since 1975). Jewsbury, who is retiring, finishes his MLS career with 352 regular-season games played, which is ninth-most in MLS history.
- Gbenga Arokoyo made his debut for the Timbers, entering the game as a second-half substitute.
