Orlando City head coach Oscar Pareja
Opening Statement
“Obviously, very happy with the result. I want to give all the credit to these players that gave everything and understood the game, how to play it – in many ways that we didn’t want to play it – but tried to match that model of D.C. of playing the long ball and finding those second balls. I thought, first half, we played better, we had some options and in the second half they gave us a little of trouble there with the style. But, as I said, we solved it and we found our ways to score, which is fantastic for our team at this moment. The most important thing is the heart that the players showed today. They have done it before, but not with results, but we got a result and that’s important for us in this moment.”
On the impact of the substitutions
“It’s fantastic for us to have such professional players that, whether they are coming from the start or they come from the bench, they just give their heart and their soul on the pitch. Nico [Lodeiro] when he combined with Duncan [McGuire], they showed us the unity that these players have and the intentions that they have just to put this team on the top. Again, we are trying to find our best version still, but it was really encouraging for us to see the response from them when they come from the bench. They help us a lot.”
On the composure the team showed to get the victory
“It was very predictable, when we saw the model of D.C. to play the long balls to [Christian] Benteke, playing for that second ball, flick the ball and trying to create that much in behind the defenders. Everything is valid in this game; everything is valid in soccer. And this is a very particular way to do it and, for us, it creates chaos sometimes that we couldn’t defend well. But along the game we found our answers, our players started competing and dueling with him [Benteke] better and then after that play, we tried many times to claim the game and player better. But they have a lot of intensity too, that I need to recognize. They have a very good coach and very good players too, and that’s what makes me feel that this victory has a lot of recognition for us. We found a way today to get three points and we’re taking those three points to Orlando. We’re very proud. That’s what I saw on the field.”
Orlando City SC Midfielder Dagur Dan Thórhallsson
Opening Statement
“I would say it’s a great feeling, finally to get the win [on the road], it’s the first of the season. I feel like we needed that to show a little bit of character. I felt like when we concede a goal we’ve been a little bit down, we can’t get out of it. But this shows that no matter the circumstances, when we concede a goal we still bounce back and we did that really well.”
On what flipped for things to start clicking for the team
“I feel like we’ve been conceding a lot of goals early in games. I don’t know why or what the reason is but it’s something we need to figure out on the training ground, myself and everybody else. For me, at least, it was ‘head up’ and we keep going. We have 90 and 10 more minutes, one hundred minutes left, so it was just head up and keep going and we got the three goals and the win.”
On what he saw on his goal
“Ivan [Angulo] is probably the fastest player in the world, he’s so fast. When he got the ball I was like, ‘ok, he’s going to try to go past him’ and once he got past him, I just [ran]. In the trainings we’ve been trying to get me there, so he just ran there and put the ball perfectly for my head. There was nothing more I could have done than just run on the ball, basically, and put it in the goal so all the credit to Ivan and great to the goal and my first goal of the season.”
