Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter
On how tough it is to lose Ben Zemanski…
“It’s tough. I thought there were a lot of unfortunate things today especially when it’s a preseason match when you are trying to get ready for the real games, the games that count, the season. You want to approach these games like a real game but the reality is it's not the same. I thought the way the game played out was unfortunate. We lose Ben, then we give up a goal right away. I’m not sure if we give up the goal because we are still getting our bearings. I thought we were very good in the first 45 minutes. I thought we had the flow. I thought we were the better team overall and we gave up a goal against the run. So that was unfortunate. Then obviously the second half you throw it out because we get a red card. Now we are playing for the first time 90 minutes, but we are playing 90 minutes with 10 men. So it’s very challenging. There were a lot of unfortunate things. Certainly didn’t go the way we wanted it to go in a lot of ways but it’s a preseason game and we have to move on from it. We will be fine.”
On the unfortunate events of tonight’s match…
“I don’t know. I think that’s sports. You get things that happen that you don’t predict. You’ve got to manage them. You get injuries, we’ve had injuries before. You certainly don’t like to get one in a preseason game when you are preparing to hopefully have the group out there that you thought would be out there. We do have depth like I mentioned. We’ve got a couple options. So we will look at those options. We still have a couple weeks to circle the wagons and figure out how to manage it.
On if the slow starts during the month of March weigh on his mind…
“No. I mean it’s not something I’m going to think about every day and worry about. We are going to take it one game at a time. We are focused on the first game and getting three points. That’s the only thing that weighs on my mind: getting three points in the first game.”
On what he said to the team to keep them focused…
“These guys are pros; you don’t have to say much of anything. They get that it's a preseason game. They know that we played well in the first 45 minutes. They also know that in the second 45 minutes that we got a red card early and “what do you do?”. I mentioned in the first half even though we controlled the flow, we still have to do better obviously in that moment where we gave up the goal. I think in the attack as well we can be a little bit more aggressive. But I think we had some quality chances. I thought it played out similar to how most first halves play out. It was tight, and I thought we were organized defensively. We didn’t give up hardly anything from the run of play. I was pleased overall when we were 11 v 11. Obviously, hard to evaluate after the red card."
On if this gives him time to re-evaluate to the lineup…
“We haven’t named our lineup for the Salt Lake game. So we might have been playing a certain lineup, but that doesn’t mean we are going start the same lineup vs Salt Lake. We’ve tried different things in training. We’ve tried different options. We have different options. We will continue to try different things if we feel we need to.”
On Adam’s [Kwarasey] play tonight…
“I thought he looked very good. It’s always nice to get your first game under your belt especially here at Providence Park, it’s a great atmosphere. Sometimes with new guys they can be a bit nervy, but I think he looked comfortable. I thought the backline played very well. I thought overall our team defending was outstanding."
