Kansas City Wizards Manager Peter Vermes
On winning in LA:
“Coming in, we knew that it was going to be a very difficult match based on the fact that LA is leading the league and they have a great pressing game, especially at home. They have a lot of weapons. Obviously, Edson has been on fire for most of the season and Landon can hurt you at anytime in a game. The key for us was to not sit back and try to absorb pressure. You can’t do that in this venue for 90 minutes. We tried to have our attacking moments, and I thought the guys did a good job. This was probably our best 90-minute performance of the whole season.”
On how the team has performed of late:
“It is all just coming to a head that the players have a sense that they have the ability to do certain things on the field in regards to whether we are down, tied or up. The other thing is, within this league, every team is very competitive and from week to week we have to be extremely prepared and very competitive from game to game.”
On the play of his flank players:
“In our formation, we have some pretty decent speed on the outsides, especially [Kei] Kamara and Ryan Smith. It provides us with a three-pronged attack and sometimes, when they send their players forward, they don’t respect the speed that those guys have. They can hurt you.”
Kansas City Wizards Defender Jimmy Conrad
On what was it like having 185 friends and family at attendance and getting a goal:
“Well, it was 1-0 and I knew Edson was marking me, so I knew that if I went up that it would probably take some energy out of him too, and make him play honest defense. I got fortunate to get on it and it bounced my way.”
On the play of the Wizards defense:
“It feels great, and when we went up 2-0, I made sure to tell the back four that we want to keep it zero here. I thought Jimmy [Nielsen] made a couple good saves for us to keep it there and it was a good collective team effort. I don’t know if we played the most aesthetically pleasing soccer, but we got the result and that’s what we need right now.”
Kansas City Wizards Midfielder Davy Arnaud
On the importance of scoring early:
“I think it’s very important. We’ve seen during this year that, generally, when we’ve gotten the first goal, we’ve gotten positive results. Tonight it happened and for us to get on top about 10 minutes in was a good time for us to get a goal. It was a great ball that Kei played to me for a goal.”
On the importance of this win in the Wizards push for a playoff spot:
“I think everybody put the work in tonight. We see what we can do when everybody’s on the same page and everybody’s working hard for each other and tonight I thought was the best example of it that we’ve had all year. This isn’t an easy place to come and play, and the work that every guy put in tonight, the guys that started and the guys that came on was great. It’s what we need every week.”
LA Galaxy Head Coach Bruce Arena
On the result:
“I think that we got outcompeted tonight. All this was about tonight was fighting and scrapping and we lost that fight. I think that was the difference in the game; they played harder.”
On the team’s recent mistakes:
“I don’t think tonight’s mistakes were the same as some of the previous mistakes. The second goal was a bit of an accident. I can’t figure that one out. The first goal, they outworked us on the play. Whether the linesman or the referee missed the call is immaterial because there were two other versions of that play afterwards, dealing with the cross and the runner. That is not an excuse.”
On the play of Kansas City:
“We were outcompeted. I wouldn’t say it is a lack of effort. I think there is an edge an athlete has to have and tonight, at too many positions, they made a few more plays that add up to make a difference over 90 minutes.”
On coaching out of a slump:
“I think we make it clear how we feel the outcome of this game occurred. I think we were outcompeted. It has to be clear that the next time we step on the field each and every player has to have a better effort. There were too many guys that did not win their battles tonight and that made a difference. A number of their players just had an edge on ours physically for the night.”
On opponents limiting Edson Buddle’s chances:
“There is certainly a real strong sense of focus on Edson. To his credit, he battled really hard in the second half. He is getting fouled a lot. I think it goes with the territory and he understands that.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder Landon Donovan
On going down a goal early:
“We again gave up an early goal. It hurts. They played harder. They played like a team that’s more desperate. They outcompeted us. They came out here to our place and outfought us. That is unacceptable.”
On what the team needs to do next week:
“The good thing is that we have a pretty clear blueprint about what works and what doesn’t. If we go back and look at all our games this year, minus one or two games where you get a little lucky or you don’t have a little luck, when we compete well, when we defend well, when we are organized, more often than not we win or get points out of games. And when we don’t, we lose. We need to get back to that again next week. Maybe we were a little complacent tonight and we got punished for it.”
On the team’s struggles tonight:
“We don’t mind playing well and competing well and giving up a goal at some point and losing a game. That’s not the issue. The issue is, you don’t want to get outcompeted, especially on your home field. That’s a little embarrassing and we can’t let that happen.”
LA Galaxy Midfielder Chris Klein
On the result:
“Kansas City played like a team that was fighting for their playoff lives, and we played like a team sitting on the top of the table with nothing to lose. I think we have to get back to the mentality of fighting and scratching and clawing for every point and every goal. We’ve given up way too many early goals this year. That makes us have to chase the game and allow teams to sit in and counter against us, which hasn’t made it easy for us.”
On the Galaxy’s ability to have more possession of the ball but not as many chances:
“I think that if you go back and look at some of the games that we won, maybe we didn’t have more of the possession, but we still got at teams, we were tight defensively and we got our chances. But we’ve gotten away from that a little bit, we’ve gotten away from the bite that we played with when we were on our run, and it has showed in some of the results we’ve had recently.”
On the team’s struggles to play from behind:
“It’s really indicative of our style of play when we go down early. We have to chase the game and chase the game and chase the game. It allows teams to sit in and be tight against us. Usually, teams have to spread themselves out, and that’s when we can catch them. When you give up that early goal, you aren’t able to do that. That’s been one of our issues lately.”
LA Galaxy Defender Todd Dunivant
On giving up the early goal:
“That’s the problem with giving up early goals and we haven’t responded well after. It’s kind of a two-pronged thing. Again tonight, we fell into the same trap. It was a foul. It did happen, but we could have still made the play. You can’t point to one play for the whole game. You have 90 minutes to do something about it, and we didn’t.”
On the team’s recent struggles:
“We haven’t responded well enough. That is something that we did very well last year, coming back, especially the early results, we were coming back and getting draws by fighting and scrapping and I think that our mentality has to change a little bit. We have to be more of a scrappy team, a blue-collar team. We’ve gotten away from that. I think that we’ve listened too much to the hype of being in first place and gotten a little complacent.”
