💬 Megan Montefusco: Orlando Pride 'have to stick together' after loss to Houston Dash

Orlando Pride Head Coach Seb Hines 

Opening statement 

“I've sang a lot of praise this season even when it hasn't gone our way, results haven't gone our way. But today, we weren't the better team, Houston were the better team. They made it difficult for us and they pressed us really hard. We looked like we weren't prepared for that. That's the most disappointing thing. If you want to play the way that we want to play, we have to dictate the game, we have to control the tempo of the game and we didn't do that. Even though we know we didn't do the fundamentals or the basics right, we still created chances to score and we've gone two games now without scoring. That has to change. We'll do our best to make a difference going into the next game next week.” 

On what was said at halftime to try and get the team going 

“You know, you talk about basics. In that first half, we didn't complete simple passes, there was a lot of turnovers that the two goals came from, throw ins and opportunities to win the ball back, keeping it wide, and start a counterattack. We looked soft today and that doesn't sit well with me. So we told the players to be more aggressive, more aggressive in the press, complete more passes, try and gain good areas to score and that is the kind of stuff we mentioned at halftime.” 

On if the quick turnaround will help the team get over this performance 

“You'd like to think so, right? We have the game at Gotham on Wednesday and they're [the Pride are] disappointed with today's performance. You want to turn around as quickly as possible and we're still going to be here in Houston and we'll review the game, have a good sit down and chat and go through the clips and show the areas that we need to be better at. Ultimately stick into our identity. We've fallen off a little bit last week in Chicago. I was happy with the performance, obviously not with the result and we don't want to make this a habit. Early on, we went four games without a win and you don't want to fall into that cycle. We need to turn around quickly and I'm sure these players will do that after today.”

Orlando Pride Defender Megan Montefusco 

Overall thoughts on the match 

“That wasn’t us tonight. That is not our team, but we have to move forward. We have shown that we can play and we just did not do that tonight. We have got to pick our heads up, find a way and move forward.”  

On the importance in keeping the morale high 

“It is everything. We have to stick together. It's not one person's fault today. It was a collective, we can't point fingers at anybody. We're a group, we're a team and we got to lift each other up. This is a part of the season, season is up and down. Like I said, we've shown what we can do and we have to lean into that and we have to find a way. These games on the road are tough and we know that. I think going forward, we're just going to stick together as a group and lift each other up, and no pointing fingers on one person. We move forward, we stick together and get back to the Pride that we know.” 

On the improvement from the team from the first half to the second half 

“We were finally playing confident, moving the ball around. I think that was probably the biggest problem in the first half was our movement was just a little too stagnant and it was too slow. In the second half, we finally started moving. That was huge. You put Marta back on the field, and she changes the game right away. I think those are things that made a huge difference. We just got to put the ball in the back net. We can move the ball all we want and play pretty soccer, but the end of the day, we've got to find the back of the net. That's the final piece we're working towards right now and it's close, but the second half is definitely showing up.”