LA Galaxy Postgame Quote Sheet
LA Galaxy 1, Portland 0
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
2016 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup – Round of 16
Providence Park – Portland, Oregon
LA GALAXY HEAD COACH BRUCE ARENA
On his overall thoughts on the match:
“We played very well. We have a very good team. We just haven’t had it together this year for long periods of time. You can see our young players are good. They wanted to play tonight and they did a fabulous job. We have an experienced backline. They played in San Jose together on Saturday, so that was beneficial. I thought the young guys, in particular [Raul] Mendiola, who obviously scored the goal, and [Emmanuel] Boateng, [Jack] McBean and [Sebastian] Lletget did a really good job out there. It was a game we thought we could win. I was really pleased that we could come here and walk away with the win.
” On what it means to for the young players to be involved in the goal and get minutes in the U.S. Open Cup:
“These are good experiences for these guys. We’ve had an unusual year with injuries, suspensions and national team call-ups. We just haven’t been able to get our team together. These guys have gotten enough time that they could get to this point to play this game and be part of a team that could win here on the road. They’ve had enough experiences this year. Some by design and some not, but it’s good and I think [Clement] Diop in goal played well. If I’m not mistaken, it’s his second game with us in the U.S. Open Cup and he hadn’t played before. He’s a good young goalkeeper, as well. I think it was a great experience.”
On Raul Mendiola scoring the deciding goal in the match…
“He’s a hard-working kid. He was aggressive getting forward. He did a lot of things. He’s a very competitive player. You could see tonight that he wasn’t bothered by the environment and the challenge. He’s been a good, young player for us. I’m pleased we got a goal from him.”
LA GALAXY DEFENDER A.J. DELAGARZA
On building on the result… “We had a lot of experience, leadership and veterans mixed with guys who are hungry like Jack [McBean], Sebastian [Lletget], Emma [Boateng]and the list goes on…of guys who have been playing well, performing well and you see Raul [Mendiola] had another chance tonight and he did well. I think him and Jack were men tonight.
On Raul Mendiola’s performance tonight…
“He’s a guy that wants to work hard and is looking for me to talk to him and put him in places where he needs to be. Tonight, he ran his tail off. One example was when they had a counter and he tracked [Darren] Mattocks all the way to the six-yard box. He did well in containing him and forcing him into a bad shot. I would say him and Jack were great tonight.”
LA GALAXY MIDFIELDER RAUL MENDIOLA
On getting the start and contributing to the win…
“I just do my job. If the coach tells me to start, I do my job like everybody else in there. I don’t have to score or I don’t have to assist; I just work for them.”
On his ability to compete with opposing players…
“I compete against anybody, no matter who’s on the field. I’m just trying to help my teammates.”
On if this is a result he can build on personally…
“I feel like I’m growing too. I feel like it’s easier for me to get in spots. I’m learning.”
On the game-winning goal he scored…
“I think the ball was on the left side. It was crossed in and no one was marking me, so I slowly took my time and hit it.”
PORTLAND TIMBERS HEAD COACH CALEB PORTER
Overall thoughts on the game…
“Disappointing to be out of the competition. I think what makes it even more disappointing is losing a home game. Obviously this year we had a couple games at home and if we would have won this we would have been back at home. So that’s what makes it more disappointing. The supporters came out; it was a great crowd. We don’t like losing at home. We don’t like losing ever. But I think it makes it worse when you lose in front of your supporters. I thought the last 80 minutes we were the better team. I thought we had better chances than they did to score. But first 10 minutes, you give up an early goal. That’s soccer. If we finish ours then it’s a different game, but we didn’t and they finished their first shot five minutes in."
On why it was difficult to get the chances on goal…
“I think we had a lot of chances. Jack Mac [Jack McInerney] had a breakaway. [Jack] Barmby was in on a breakaway and the ball ran too far on him and [Darren] Mattocks had one as well. [Fanendo] Adi had a good header there at the end. Barmby had another one that he just pulled wide. Those are about as good of chances as you are going to get. You do have to credit LA as well. I thought they defended well. Thought [Jeff] Larentowicz and [Baggio] Husidic did well closing passing lanes and I thought [Jelle] Van Damme and [Dave] Romney and [Ashley] Cole and [AJ] DeLaGarza did a good job as well. It was an experienced back six. It hurt us a little bit probably with Cole and Van Damme being suspended the next game because probably if they weren’t suspended those two probably wouldn’t have played in the game. So that helped them for sure.”
On the decision to play Darlington Nagbe all 90 minutes…
“He needs it. He’s been away and he hasn’t played much. I thought he was outstanding. There’s a lot of promising performances today. The first 10 minutes was disappointing and the result was disappointing. I don’t like losing at home in front of our supporters because they were outstanding today. I want to thank them today and I’m sorry that we let them down. I thought there were some promising performances today and as a whole and really for 80 minutes we were the better team. But this is a 90-minute game, plus.”
On the breakdown in the first 10 minutes…
“I thought in general, in the first 10 minutes, we were dropping off too much. Ultimately, we needed to step the line up and squeeze the space better. The goal came off a cross and a missed clearance and then we were too deep. He took it well. You saw then rest of the match we were stepping and aggressive, and we also created good chances, but that’s soccer. No one cares. It’s all about the result in tournament football. They got an early goal and we didn’t find a goal, so we don’t deserve to win. But there were some promising performances. I thought Barmby was pretty good on the day. I thought Mattocks, especially those first 45, was really good and I thought Nagbe I don’t think he made a wrong step over 90 minutes. Good to have him back, good to get him a 90. I thought there were some other very strong performances too."
On if going to Copa helped Darlington Nagbe grow and develop even though he didn’t play much…
“He trained for a month with the top-level players in our country, day in and day out. Being in that environment is a huge positive. You can see his game, even though he didn’t play in the games, his play didn’t suffer at all. In fact, I saw even a little bit more confidence to him."
PORTLAND TIMBERS MIDFIELDER JACK JEWSBURY
On if anything was different because it was an Open Cup game…
“Not for us; I think we go into each different competition and, on that day, we want to win to continue to go on. In the Open Cup, at this point, it only takes one more win to get where we wanted to get. It’s disappointing, obviously, because we knew the next game would have been at home against Seattle. That’s makes it hurt even worse, but we’ve got to pick ourselves back up now and focus on the league and Champions League.”
On what happened on the first goal…
“I think that we continue to harp on good starts and coming out on the front foot, and for whatever reason those first five or 10 minutes weren’t good enough and obviously they get a goal on the first shot. So that’s disappointing, to put yourselves in a bit of a hole, and they were able to pretty much sit deep, defend and try to counter. And unfortunately we couldn’t get the ball to go in, even though we had quite a few chances.”
On how it was having Darlington Nagbe back…
“It’s always nice for me. A guy you can just bounce the ball to. It’s great to have him back. He’s obviously a key to what we do. It was nice having him in there.”
PORTLAND TIMBERS FORWARD JACK BARMBY
Thoughts on the game…
“Disappointing to lose and go out in the competition, obviously. I think we’ve shown that we [were] the better team over the 90 minutes. Unfortunately, they scored first and we couldn’t get that goal. Disappointing, but I think there are positives to take away from individual performances.”
On if he’s becoming more comfortable…
“Definitely. That’s what I’m here to do – to play for the team and create chances and score goals. Unfortunately tonight we just couldn’t get it in the back of the net, which is disappointing.”
On playing in front of the fans at Providence Park…
“It’s a totally different experience. It is something that you probably can’t really put into words until you do it yourself; it’s nothing like I’ve experienced. I think even teams coming here they find it difficult. Tonight we go down one-nil in the first 10 minutes and the crowd seemed to get louder and better; it seems to help us on the pitch. You can just hear for the full 90 minutes and it’s just great.”
PORTLAND TIMBERS DEFENDER NAT BORCHERS
On tonight’s match…
“To have an opportunity to have a home game, to win this game and go on to the next round and be at home against a big rival, it’s definitely disappointing for sure.”
On what he can take away from the performance…
“I think as a group, the first 10 minutes weren’t good enough from us. But the rest of the game I thought we were pretty tidy, pretty sharp on both sides of the ball. We didn’t give them many chances at all, which is the most frustrating thing I think for us. A lot of guys came in and stepped up and did well.”
