Orlando Pride Head Coach Seb Hines
Opening Statement
“It's always a tough place to come play, regardless of the form of Portland. It [the Pride lineup] was a different team to what everyone's seen in recent games. We decided to make changes. That was justified by the efforts of what other players have done throughout the season, and it was also an opportunity to give players a chance to go out and express themselves and get on the field. I think overall, there wasn't a lot between the two teams. I think it came down to a defensive set piece and a throw in, and so it's a good opportunity for us to reflect, review the game and make sure that doesn't happen again.”
On what he told the players in the locker room after the game
“That we don't want to feel like that again. You know, they haven't experienced that feeling for over a year, so let it sink in and make sure that we don't experience that feeling again at the end of the game.”
On if it’s a good thing to get a loss out of the way
“No, I think we want to win every game. You tell me a player who is in a competitive league and feels like it's good to lose? I don't feel like that. I feel like we want to win every game regardless who's on the field representing this Club.”
On the importance of the minute's rotation for players
“Really important. Job was done on Sunday at home, the celebrations of winning [the NWSL Shield] and being the number one team in the league. And with a quick turnaround coming to Portland, playing on turf as well, I don't know why we're still doing that in today's game, but yeah, there's challenges within it. We felt like it was a good opportunity to play players who haven't played significant minutes this season. We decided on that, and we went with it. There was some good performances tonight and there's some things that you could see that there was an element of rust. That team cohesion wasn't quite there but it's okay, we'll move forward, and we'll come back next week.”
Orlando Pride Forward Ally Watt
Overall thoughts on the match
“Obviously we're disappointed with the result, but hey, we still keep going. We learn from every game, and we still keep moving forward. We still have playoffs to look forward to, we still have two more games, so we just keep moving forward and we just learn from it.”
On if the emotional weight behind the match for Portland impacted the team
“Portland's always a tough stadium to play at. They always have a lot of fans, it's very loud, the turf is always a different story. But honestly, first, congrats to [Christine] Sinclair, amazing career and amazing send off for her. But yeah, we can’t let the atmosphere be an excuse for the result, but Portland's always a tough place to come play every year, so you just learn from it.”
On how the early goal from Portland impacted the team
“Definitely just wakes us up, and we need to just start getting moving earlier. It just woke us up, that's the best thing to say about it.”
On the team suffering their first loss in over a year
“We haven't done this [lost] in a long time. Yeah, it's disappointing, there's no other word to describe it but at the same time, it's not a crisis. We're still in good form going into the playoffs. It's a record that got broken. We set that record. That's a high standard to have. Hey, let's try again. But yeah, you just learn from this mistake. We learn from these mistakes we had this game, and we adjust for the next game.”
Orlando Pride Defender Carrie Lawrence
Overall thoughts on the match
"Obviously disappointing. We've been on a run, and losing is never something that we want, but we just learn from this, and we continue to grow and move on.”
On what she saw on Portland’s first goal
“It was a ball floated to the back post, and as we tried to clear our lines, there was obviously a [Portland player] in between that was onside. So, yeah, just need to clean that up going forward.”
On if the early goal woke the team up at all
“Yeah, 100 percent. We never want to go down in a game. But I actually thought the rest of the first half we responded well, and it was just our mistakes that they [Portland] were capitalizing on. So, it's just something that's always in our control and we can clean up going forward.”
On if the atmosphere was tough for the team
“Personally, I actually enjoy those atmospheres more because I use it to help me and my game and the anticipation and everything behind the crowd. But tonight, obviously they were loud, and especially when she [Sinclair] scored, that was not great for us. But I think we need to learn to do better in those situations and flip it to get the momentum on our side.”
