Portland Timbers Quotes
Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter
Thoughts on tonight’s performance…
“I thought it was our best performance of the year from start to finish, both sides of the ball. I thought our patience and continuing to be disciplined and not give up a goal until we got the goal was really key. A lot of positives. I don’t need to talk about all of them. I hope that you guys will. I will leave that to you. It was a great result and we have to keep it going.”
On what he’s seen in the recent turnaround…
“I don’t know if we’ve really turned anything around, we’ve played well all year. We’ve not finished our chances in a few games. It looked to be similar today, but I think finding a goal and then the second goal, it just shows how far we have come in terms of staying with what we have been doing and I think that’s the key. We’ve never deviated. We’ve continued to push. We’ve made a few tweaks, but I’m very proud of the guys. Just need to keep doing what they’ve been doing.”
On how pleased he is with the response after losing Diego Valeri in Toronto and that result…
“This team has a lot of character. The will to win and all the intangible things you want in your team and we’ve shown that for the last three years, even last year. We showed that with our performance at the end of the year with the fact that we started so slow and then recovered. And good teams have that. Our locker room is tight. The spirit of this team is very good and now we’ve got a lot of confidence which you see today. That little bit of extra confidence was the difference at the end of this game. The competition within this team now has never been better. Our training sessions have never been better in terms of the fight. Guys are competing for jobs. Today you get [Fanendo] Adi who comes into the game and scores two goals. It’s great that guys keep stepping up for the club. Shows how hungry they are to contribute to the cause."
On if the team has built more resilience…
“I think when things don’t come easy and you have to go through adversity and you don’t unravel with it, you get stronger with it which is what this group has done. They responded positively to it and we’ve been honest about it. We’ve never been oblivious to what’s not right and I think that’s been a big reason why we have continued to make improvements, but also we haven’t panicked. We haven’t deviated too much from what we are doing because I know the media and supporters don’t like to hear it, but when you play well and lose and you say you played well, but ultimately there were a lot of games we played really well. So evidence for me as a coach was there to not change too much. We’ve definitely in the last couple of weeks have gained confidence and come together. There’s a different feeling in the locker room. A different spirit, so we need keep riding that wave of momentum. We hope to get four in a row now. We have an Open Cup game next week. It’s a big opportunity there. Then we have Houston back at home to hopefully make it four in a row [in league]. So we need to keep piling up points.”
On Darlington Nagbe’s performance…
“I thought he was a bit unlucky. I thought [Bobby] Shuttleworth really kept them in the game. He had a couple of nice strikes, he was aggressive. So it was good to see. He still hasn’t gotten that goal, but I’m confident it will come. We will keep plugging away, he’s going to keep plugging away. He’s a very good player.”
On the importance of getting goals from several different players…
“I think that’s very important. You saw that in 2013, we had a lot goals from a lot of different guys. That’s what we have to with this team. I don’t think we are going to have one guy like some teams that scores 15-plus goals, so hopefully we’ll start to get some contributions from our wingers. Right now Maxi [Maximiliano Urruti] and Adi are stepping up, Gata [Gastón Fernández] has gotten his first goal, so we are going to continue to perhaps go with different guys because that might be what we have to do.”
On the balance in the pairing between Diego Chara and Will Johnson…
“Really well. In some ways because Will isn’t quite 100 percent in terms of being able to cover the type of ground that he normally can cover but I think positionally those two guys have been great together. In the two games they played we got two cleans. We defended extremely well in the back six. This game in particular was a really tricky game. There is a lot of talent in New England’s front guys. A lot of talent, dynamic, and clever, that’s why they are one of the best attacking teams in the league. So we will continue to gain confidence from shutting down good teams like we did today. It’s the back four, it’s the two holding mids together, and it’s the front guys as well. Everybody deserves credit for the good defending against that team.”
On if the team has developed a “killer instinct”…
“We need to start believing that we can do something special this year. We can’t get ahead of ourselves; we’ve won three games in a row. It feels good. We will ride that wave of momentum and confidence, but there are going to be games where we fall short. It’s going to be a long road; it’s still not going to be easy. But I think this team does believe more than ever that we can do something special this year, but only if we continue to play like we did tonight and in the last couple of games. If we keep our heads screwed on right and keep doing what we are doing, keep having good performances, I’m confident we will have an opportunity to do something this year.”
Portland Timbers forward Fanendo Adi
On scoring a brace and getting a win…
“I think it’s very important, not just for me, but for the entire team. We’ve won three in a row. It’s beautiful. I think it was a great job from the entire team.”
On coming off the bench and scoring two goals…
“It’s just about concentration and being focused. Today, I was happy I could come off the bench and contribute. It’s just about concentration.”
On what scoring does for his confidence…
“It does a lot. Since we have been rotating the forwards, when a striker is in the groove he needs to play. Maxi [Maximiliano Urruti] and Gastón [Fernández] have been doing a great job, so all credit to them. I come in and get two goals for us. In general, it’s about the confidence of the team, we had a great game.”
On the satisfaction of this result…
“As a team in general we have been playing very well recently. A few weeks in a row we’ve gotten wins and it’s very important for the entire team. It brings a lot of confidence. For us, it’s about doing the right thing, playing and training well and of course about putting the ball in the back of the net.”
Portland Timbers goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey
On how the defense played tonight…
“I think we defended great. I didn’t have a lot to do today and that’s how it’s been so far this season at home. We’ve defended as a team and learned players and fighting for each other we get rewarded with another clean sheet.”
On his reaction to the goals…
“I thought it was going to be the same as it was against Vancouver as it was against Salt Lake where we have huge chances and we get our goal and I saw that one go in, that was a nice feeling. Three in a row is a history as well so that is great.”
On the team confidence after a historic three wins in a row…
“I feel great. I think the rest of the team must feel great, seeing everyone smile and everybody’s happy in training, it’s easy to go and train. We don’t think too much about that we’ve won three games in a row. We just keep bringing positives to the next game. Now we have three in a row, we just have to forget about those three games. It’s a club game then try to continue after that and focus on that game, not thinking about too much of what we’ve done before.”
New England Revolution Quotes
New England Revolution head coach Jay Heaps
On the overall match…
“In the end it wasn’t our best game overall. I thought our fight and our commitment was really good. In the end just too many guys just didn’t have their stuff tonight and it hurt us because I think there were times in the game where we could have played and we didn’t. In the end the pressure kept coming and credit a free kick goal. That one was really a tough one to give up.”
On how the team responded from Portland’s early wave of pressure…
“I thought our best stuff was probably from 20 minutes on until the end of the half and then they came back out again and we never got controlled in the second half. I felt our first half, I was happy with. Second half in the end we were just giving up too much space and too much pressure.”
On if you start thinking about getting a road point in the second half…
“I think we wanted to get control of the game. I think you think about when you get down when we’re in the 85th minute and we haven’t generated enough offense we’re thinking about who’s doing well, who can keep the ball for us, how can we stay in this game. So, we made subs to do that. I thought Kevin [Alston] coming in to shore things up a little bit, give Chris [Tierney] a little bit more freedom, I thought Kevin did a great job. Sean [Okoli] was a like for like sub, we wanted some size up top. I thought Charlie [Davies] did a good job but we needed fresh legs and then [Andy] Dorman I thought really ran out of gas. Unfortunately, I think he was doing a lot of work and that’s where we need to keep the ball. Center midfield gets punished if you don’t keep it so bringing Daigo [Kobayashi] on to try and give us an outlet and in some way a play rather than to just continue to take in on the face.”
New England Revolution midfielder Kelyn Rowe
On the overall match…
“You know it’s a hard team to play against here and the home crowd. I think we had our spurts, we had our moments that we were good, some chances that weren’t taken to the fullest, I think. It’s not a way you want to end a game. It’s something we really need to focus on. It’s happened a couple times this year. Just have to buckle down and get a point on the road, it’s just something we need to do. Two goals in the last five minutes, you know, we know that and we know that we can be better and we will.”
On what wasn’t clicking in the second half…
“A couple of things, I think they won a lot of second balls in the middle. I think Scotty [Caldwell] and [Andy] Dorman really stepped it up and really made it hard for them to do that. I think it’s back and forth in the second half. I don’t think it was one way too much besides maybe the last five or 10 minutes but I think credit Dorman and Scotty and Lee [Nguyen]. I think they disrupted them a lot from getting their play going. [There were] a lot of half chances.”
New England Revolution defender Jose Goncalves
On the overall match…
“Very difficult. We knew it was a tough place to come and play. I think the first half we were in there. I think we pressured well, the ball, and created some chances. Obviously they had some chances but the second half they came out and they wanted it more than us. The last 10 minutes they had a lot of chances. I mean we knew that they were going to make everything to try to get the three points and it’s tough. We have to move on to the next one.”
On if he saw anything on the Portland set piece…
“No. I mean we always try to defend very well, to clear, knowing that they are dangerous, knowing the set pieces. They’re big guys and that’s their strength and that’s what they did. Knowing that and defending bad it’s very frustrating of course as a defender.”
Notes:
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Saturday’s crowd of 21,144 was the team’s 75th consecutive home sellout at Providence Park since 2011. Portland has sold out all of its regular-season home games since joining MLS.
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With Saturday’s win, the Timbers have won three consecutive matches for the first time in MLS-club history and for the first time across all eras since August 2009.
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Defender Liam Ridgewell made his 30th consecutive start for the Timbers on Saturday. The streak is currently the longest on the team.
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Midfielder Diego Chara made his 130th career start for the Timbers on Saturday. Chara has logged 131 appearances (130 starts) since 2011.
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Defender Alvas Powell made his 30th career MLS start for Portland on Saturday. The game marked the 20-year-old defender’s 35th career appearance.
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Playing 90 minutes, midfielder Will Johnson is 173 minutes shy of reaching the 15,000 minutes played milestone for his MLS career. Saturday’s start marked Johnson’s second of the season.
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Forward Fanendo Adi had multiple goals in a match for the second time this season. Adi is one of six players in MLS in 2015 with multiple braces joining Kei Kamara, Jozy Altidore, Sebastian Giovinco, Will Bruin and Clint Dempsey.
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Since debuting for Portland on May 17, 2014, Adi has registered six braces, which is tied with Seattle forward Obafemi Martins for the most in MLS over that period.
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Adi has scored 15 goals for the Timbers, which brings him into a tie with Rodney Wallace and Will Johnson for the third-most goals in Timbers MLS-club history.
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Chara and Powell each delivered their first assist of the season, bringing the total number of Timbers with assists in 2015 to 12. Portland is tied with New England for having the largest amount of players with at least one assists this season.
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Goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey registered his sixth career shutout and moves into the Top 10 all-time for career shutouts for the Timbers across all eras.
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New England has failed to score a goal in its three MLS matches at Providence Park since 2011. Since the Portland Timbers began play in 1975, no Massachusetts-based team (Revolution, New England Tea Men and Boston Minutemen) has beaten Portland at home.
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Portland extended its streak without conceding a goal at Providence Park to 275 minutes with a third straight home shutout on Saturday. Portland hasn’t conceded a goal at Providence Park since an 85th-minute penalty kick against Orlando City on April 12.
- Portland is 5-1-5 over its last 11 regular-season home matches since 2014.
