Peter Vermes, Sporting Kansas City Manager
On the game overall:
I thought tactically we were very disciplined on the field. It wasn’t an easy game. The first half was very tentative on both parts. I don’t think we gave much away and neither did they. In the second half, we talked about gettingafter it a little bit more because we thought they would push the game, being at home. I thought we did a decent job of turning them over and teal did anexcellent job finishing.
On getting the road victory:
It puts you in a good position. The key was to get out of here with a result. We got a shutout, but we go home thinking it’s 0-0 and we’ve got to play again. They got rewarded for their discipline, tactically. The game plan was good and the guys executed it very well. We’ve got to do that again [Wednesday].
On how Colorado’s injuries affect Game 2:
It’s never easy when you have injuries. I get it. But they have a very deep team. There’s a lot of good players on their roster. They’re the defending MLW champs and we realize that. We’re not going to take them lightly. We have to come and play a regular game. There’s no other way to look at it other than that. They’re the team to beat. We still haven’t finished anything yet.
On Teal Bunbury’s performance:
Teal [Bunbury] is a very strong guy. When he plays shoulder to shoulder with some guys, he can easily dominate in that area. He holds players off the ball very well. Once he gets a little step by you, with his explosiveness, he can get by you. He showed that tonight.
Teal Bunbury, Sporting Kansas City Forward
On Colorado’s performance:
They were putting pressure on us. They’re at home. They were putting us under pressure. We were a little slow at first to defend what they were bringing to us. It took us a little time to notice it. We had to pick our moments when to press them and when to go at them. The second half, we were pressuring them, and we got the job done.
On Sporting’s approach to the game:
We didn’t want to sit back and wait. We wanted to go at them the same way they were coming at us.
On Colorado’s injuries:
Whoever I’m going up against, I try to think in my head that I have the advantage. That’s the mentality I need to have. We try to go at teams no matter who’s in there. Same for me. With my teammates around me, we had a good game tonight.
On his first goal:
Julio played a great ball to me. I just tried to take my first touch as far away from the defender as possible and pick out my corner. I try to keep my composure. Most importantly, it was a great team win.
On the penalty kick goal:
Classic PK goal. I tried to see where Pickens was going and pick my corner. That’s what I did.
There’s a second game still. It’s not over at all. Yeah, we won this game, but Colorado’s a very good team. They’ve been this position before. They’ve played in playoff game. We’re going to be at home. Yes, we’ll have an advantage, but we have to stay mentally prepared.
Roger Espinoza, Sporting Kansas City Midfielder
On the mentality going forward:
We can’t relax. We still have another game back at home and we need to win. It’s good to come here and win. Hopefully we can do it at home, too.
On being disciplined on the defense:
We came here knowing that a tie was okay. You try to win the game, but we want to make sure that we didn’t give them any space to score. We did very good defensively. At the end, that’s why we won.
On game two:
We have to win. They’re defending champions. We have to have respect for them. We knew they are very good at home. Last year, they made that run and made the championship.
Jimmy Nielsen, Sporting Kansas City Goalkeeper
On the approach to the game:
We had a plan before the game. We stuck to the plan the whole game. When the first players do their job, it makes it easy for the midfield. When the midfield does their job, it makes it easy for the defenders. At the end of the day, I hadnothing to do today. It was fantastic.
On cutting down the channels:
We did very well. We know Colorado’s a good team. They have a lot of good players We knew it would be a tough challenge. We stuck to the plan and I think we deserved the win today.
On going back home for game two:
We have to play to win. We cannot go on the field and play not to lose. We have to play our game. With 20,000 people behind us, it will be an exciting game.
On Mac Kandji’s late scoring chance:
I tried to come out big. Lucky for me, it hit my hip. It was an important save. 2-0 is a big result.2-1, anything can happen. You’re trying to read him and stay big. At the moment he wanted to shoot, I tried to spread out and be as big as possible. Good for me, it hit me.
Gary Smith, Colorado Rapids Head Coach
On what adjustments to make to get the desired result:
There’s a number of things we need to try and work out tomorrow morning. All three [injured] guys are going for scans. It’s a bit of a strange one that we have as many injuries as we have and then three guys get carried off in a game. I’m not going to say that they were over the top, but I did feel as though the referee could have contained some of the situations a little bit better.
Certainly the tackle on Kosuke [Kimura] was overzealous, as was [Teal] Bunbury’s on Drew [Moor]. Given that I think [Kei] Kamara throws a punch at [Miguel] Comminges at one point and referee [Baldomero] Toledo decides to send Tyrone [Marshall] off for the situation that he found himself in; I found it strange. Nevertheless, they affect the game. We’ll try and get a fit team out on Wednesday night and it’s two nil at halftime. It’s a tough result. I’m not sure that the team could have endured many more circumstances than they did. And I’ve got to say I’m proud of how they came out of the game. They threw absolutely everything they had at it physically and I think the third or even fourth goal that Kansas may well have scored if it had given in would have put the tie to bed. But there’s a little bit of life to it, and we’d certainly like to put them under a little bit of pressure and score nice and early down in Kansas.
On his message to the team after the game:
Go home. Rest. Do something that you enjoy so that you change your mindset. And come in tomorrow morning and for the next couple of days get ready to go to war again down on Wednesday. And I’m sure it won’t be any easier. They are a big, strong side, they’ve proved that. But there’s still some mileage in us. I’d like to think we can push the boundaries a little bit more.
On Pablo Mastroeni’s status and the other injuries:
I think he’s going to be a doubt again for Wednesday. He’s certainly not making enough progress to be a body coming back into the group. And all three of the other guys, as I said, are going in for scans tomorrow…. There were numerous things tonight that just did not go our way. Sometimes when you get to this point in a competition, you know last year our name was on the cup andmaybe not this year, maybe it’s somebody else. The one thing is for sure that they give it a real good shot and we could have easily been out with a tie tonight.
Macoumba Kandji, Colorado Rapids Forward
On how his healed injury felt during the game:
It was good. I didn’t really have time to warm up because it was just so fast. But as the game went on I was getting warmer and warmer.
On the physical nature of the game:
These kinds of things you have to expect in a game. Sometimes referees make mistakes but you cannot blame it on them every time. We’ve just got to move on and hopefully try to go back there and stick it to them.
On the missed chance to score:
I was trying to tuck it on the inside and I thought it was already in but I looked up and it wasn’t. But I was trying to tuck it on the inside because the keeper was coming. When the guy was down, I was a little bit off balance soright when he came I tried to chip it on the inside unfortunately. Hopefully we’ll try to get more chances when we get there.
Jeff Larentowicz, Colorado Rapids Midfielder
On the task at hand on Wednesday:
Well we have to produce two goals – that’s our task. I think that tonight we allowed them to score and it was unlike us in the last couple of games to allow goals like that. The circumstances became pretty tough when we make substitutions for players that get injured and that’s going to change the game. It’s always going to change the game. So, the task is there. The task is a good challenge andthis is a two game series, 180 minutes. So, you know they beat us here two nothing.
