Swope Park Rangers head coach Marc Dos Santos
On maintaining the early lead:
“I think you had to play the type of game where you need to suffer to win, you need to be strong mentally to keep the score and have some pride in everything we were doing defensively. We knew that in transition and in counterattack they would open up, they would take a lot of risks, we would create a lot of opportunities out of counterattack chances. We saw especially in the last 10 minutes three or four three-v-two’s that the quality and the decision-making wasn’t always very good and you could kill the game in this last ball and you didn’t. But overall I think that the fighting spirit, the attitude of the guys (was excellent). The answer after losing at home against OKC – that we didn’t tolerate – and we went to win in Seattle and now winning at home against Saint Louis, it’s important for the club and important for the guys.”
On the team’s defensive efforts:
“In today’s modern game, and modern soccer the possession is very artistic, it’s beautiful to watch but it’s not always efficient. I think that the little spans where you have the ball and you know exactly what you want to do with it I think that’s more important than having a lot of possession and us when we have the ball and when we win it, we know exactly what we want to do out of it, but today we lacked quality, especially in that second half after the 36 minutes (at the weather delay), we went in for an hour and came back those 12 minutes, it wasn’t good. We weren’t able to hold the ball, we were under a lot of pressure, it was a little bit better in the second half. Overall I think by the spirit of the guys we deserved the three points, but there is still a lot of things to work on.”
On Tyler Pasher’s return to the lineup after injury:
“If you ask him I don’t think he had his better game, he was on and off, and I know he could give much more to the team, but you know, what do you ask from a guy that had a concussion, stayed three games out, and then in the game he comes back, gets cleared yesterday, and scores the winner, that’s very good for him and for us. It wasn’t his best game, he knows that for sure.”
Swope Park Rangers winger Tyler Pasher
On scoring the game winning goal:
“It was unexpected. I came in and just got back into training this weekend. I just wanted to do as much I could for the team and get a result here today.”
On defending the lead for 88 minutes:
“We showed a lot of character to hold the game up for that long. We got a really early goal and we held the game for 90-plus minutes and that just shows great character from all the boys defensively.”
