Sporting Kansas City Manager Peter Vermes
On the goals:
The good thing is that the two new guys on the team, our first round draft pick in C.J. – his debut, he scores and I think he had a monster game. He was dangerous, had the ball a lot, he was just very good for us and then Omar, two timely goals. I think the first 25 minutes he struggled… because he was so anxious, being the DP, playing against Chivas USA; I think there were so many things that he wanted to prove and then he calmed down and once he calmed down, that’s when he started playing his game. And that’s why he’s here, because of the way he played.
On his team’s performance:
The commitment is there, the aggressive attitude to go and shoot on goal. I actually think there was a shot on goal by Milos Stojcev where Zach Thornton made a fantastic save down low to his right, because that thing was tattooed, I mean, he hit it. So if we had four [shots] on goal and we scored three, that’s pretty good, I’m good with that. We need to be better because I think last year we led the league on shots on goal and we just have to better at that part of it, but scoring three goals away from home is a big thing.
Delantero de Sporting Kansas City Omar Bravo
Sobre el partido:
Yo querÃa ganar. Lo comenté ayer que era bueno empezar ganando. El equipo sufrió un poco, manejó bien los tiempos del juego. Estoy contento por mi debut en la MLS, porque él equipo ganó. La afición me respetó, anoté gol y eso me deja tranquilo y contento.
Sobre comenzar ganando:
Estaba un poco ansioso por todo el entorno a la temporada. Pero esto es apenas un parámetro del ritmo que queremos imponer en la liga, en la temporada.
Sobre cómo se está acoplando al equipo y al entrenador:
Yo vine a sumar, no a restar. Me ilusiona este inicio pero para nosotros es difÃcil porque la situación del nuevo estadio que está preparando Sporting. Aunque ese no es un paso a favor, hay que seguir trabajando.
Sporting Kansas City C.J. Sapong
About the fastest goal by a rookie in MLS:
A year [ago], I’m at a small college, in a small conference. I didn’t know if I was going to be a professional soccer player. Fast-forward to this point and I’m starting for a team with people like Davy Arnaud, Kei Kamara, it was definitely surreal scoring. Before the game we were talking about what the celebration was going to be when we score, what we were going to do, but when it happens that fast, it just all went by the wayside. It was a dream; all I could do was run and scream. It shows for me all the hard work has paid off, but at the same time it’s a motivating tool to keep it up. We got our first points on the road, we have a long road trip, and it’s important that we let soak in right now but at the beginning of the week we’ve got to start getting ready for Chicago.
Sapong describes his goal:
One of our set pieces had a run towards the back post and my job just to get it back into the mixer, it ended up hitting the defender, he took a little bit of a heavy touch and I just pounced on it because you have to be hungry. I ended getting it before him, once I passed him; it was just about concentrating to put it in the net.
Chivas USA Head Coach Robin Fraser
On the result:
Obviously a very disappointing result. I feel like when you play at home you should win, end of story, so we’re disappointed about not winning. But I was very, very encouraged by a lot of the soccer that we saw tonight. I thought that at times, for good portions of the match, we played very good soccer, got into the attacking end. I thought it was difficult for them to handle us as we came forward in waves. I would like to have seen us have a little bit more of a killer instinct in the final third, but I think that’s coming as well. The disappointing this is that I feel like individual mistakes led us to where we are, because for the most part I thought the team played fairly well.
On the play of Marcos Mondaini:
I think Marcos has been getting better since the first day he got here, to be honest. I think you see that he’s an intelligent, crafty, quick player who has been in a number of big games, and I felt like for his first MLS game he was completely unfazed and was a really productive part of our attack.
On the response in the second half:
I think we’re still in the process of finding our identity, finding out who we are. I think sometimes when your back is against the wall and you’ve got nowhere else to go and you can’t look anywhere else, you have to look at yourself and you see what kind of response you get. In the first half I thought we played well, and to give up a goal in the first two minutes and the last two minutes for me was extremely disappointing, because that points more to concentration than anything else. I think the players were extremely disappointed that they were down 2-0 at the half to a team that they felt like they’d outplayed for the majority of the half. So I think it was one of those situations… where they just looked at it and said, you know what, we’re better than what we’re showing, we’re better than what the score says on the scoreboard, and they came out with some urgency and I was proud of the response.
Chivas USA defender Jimmy Conrad
On the match:
I think we shot ourselves in the foot. I think if we eliminated individual mistakes, we’re talking about a pretty good performance by a brand-new Chivas team under Robin Fraser. That’s kind of been the bane of our existence throughout preseason; we play good for 75-80 minutes and we give up one or two mental mistakes and we lose those games, and we fell into that trap again and it’s just unfortunate that we haven’t learned from some of the mistakes that we’ve made.
On how the team looked:
Our spacing is good, our passing is good, it looks like we have purpose, and I think we’re much different than the Chivas team of last year. There’s a sense of pride in what we’re doing and how we’re trying to do it. We scored two in the second half, we maybe could’ve had one or two in the first, but when you give up easy goals, it really starts to deflate your confidence. I thought we showed some good character tonight, it just wasn’t enough in the end.
On scoring in his first game with Chivas:
My mom brought out over 200 people, so to be able to score in front of them, it’s pretty nice, but it would be better to have the win. It was my 20th career goal. I’m averaging like 1.7 a season. I don’t if my math’s right.
Marcos Mondaini, delantero de Chivas USA
Sobre su debut en la MLS:
Contento, muy feliz que esta nueva etapa empieza. Lamentablemente con el sabor amargo de la derrota, no esperábamos esto, menos en casa. Yo creo que en algunos momentos nosotros mismos les hicimos las cosas más fáciles a ellos, y hoy en dÃa, en el futbol mundial, eso se paga, y nosotros lo pagamos.
Sobre lo que tiene que hacer el equipo para ganar el próximo partido:
Obviamente, trabajar fuerte, trabajar duro, como lo venimos haciendo, y corregir detalles que son detalles en lo que ocasiona a ganar o perder el partido.
Sobre ser el primer Argentino en Chivas USA:
Contento, muy contento y muy feliz de estar en esta gran institución, de pertenecer a este equipo y muy orgulloso de ser el primer Argentino en vestir en esta camiseta.
