💬 Seb Hines: 'I'm super proud of the team' following comeback draw with Angel City FC

Orlando Pride Head Coach Seb Hines

Opening Statement 

“I mean, it's an emotional game of course. You have the highs and lows but overall, I'm super proud of the team and the players to show that sort of resiliency to never give up. It’s difficult when everything is going against you, but you look at that group of players and they wear their hearts on their sleeves, and they give absolutely everything. I’m so proud of them to get something at the end of it because they fully deserved it.” 

On Marta’s performance 

“I said it from the start, you know, Marta is our heartbeat. She’s the core of the team and when she has that passion that you talked about it really transfers to the rest of the players and I think you could see the energy of her, of the staff, the players, the fans. It just gets that overall feeling amongst the group to really push on and get something at the end of it. She fully deserved the goal because of what she has done in this game and in previous games. I’m really happy for her to get rewarded with the goal and the equalizer.” 

On the defense’s performance

“They were incredible. I said from the start, the way the game is going and evolving, you can’t just pigeonhole players into one position. They have to be versatile and that’s why we select the players on this team and at this club and so they were fully prepared. They knew what was at stake today. I felt that they handled Angel City’s forward line really well and the goal came from a PK [Penalty Kick]. It’s tough because you don’t want to give up goals like that, but I thought overall the back line was brilliant. They were fully together, they were communicating really well, they were confident in everything that they did and it’s really important that we have those characteristics across the group. It doesn’t matter if you’re a right back, you have to be able to fill in that center back position. I thought with our absentees all missing, those two were brilliant tonight.”

Orlando Pride Goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse

On the team’s depth, especially at center back 

“I think it shows that anyone can play. Anyone has the ability to play anywhere and I think that’s beauty of this team. We’re so together, that I can have Kerry Abello and Bri [Martinez] playing centerback, when they’re not centerbacks. I trust them to the job of a centerback, because I trust them and they trust me—so we have that mutual trust that we’re going to get that job done.” 

On earning a point late on in the match 

“It means we have two points instead of zero, compared to the same point of the season last year. Obviously we want six points, but two points is definitely a positive compared to last year. It was something that we looked at in the offseason, how to manage games. I think we’ve done that in the past two games. We’ve recognized that maybe we are not in the position to go and get that last minute winner when we’ve just got the equalizer. Against Angel City last year, we equalized late and then were searching for the winner and they scored. I think we’ve learned from last year to kind of set up shop and work on next week.” 

On Marta’s goal 

“I had the perfect view of Marta’s goal, I saw it go all the way over the top, and then Marta puts it in the back post—it was a really good finish. The back line is very young too, that’s another point, not only was it a makeshift back line, it was a very young back line. I think I was the oldest one, by quite a lot, by four years maybe. So, yes, it was an inexperienced back line, but we stuck together and we got the result that’s the beauty of the team.”

Orlando Pride Defender Brianna Martinez

On how she feels about the performance the defenders put in  

“Obviously we had a couple of our key players out. People stepped up. Going down a goal with the penalty, I think the team did a really good job of coming back into the game.” 

On the makeshift back line and if it was easier or harder 

“Maybe a little bit easier in the beginning of the season. I think with how quickly we had to make that decision, it wasn’t quite as easy but definitely easier than it would have been later in the season.” 

On her first start of the season and her relationship with Kerry Abello 

“It felt really good to start. Obviously, there was a healthy amount of nerves before the game. Kerry [Abello] and I were talking all week long about sticking together as the two center backs and starting to build for our team and making sure that we valued the ball and kept it as much as we could during the game.” 

On the team being able to fight back from being down this season  

“Last year that was something we didn’t do as well so that was a big focus for us going into this season. We wanted to start better than we did last year. So, I think just getting the one point from coming back in the game has been huge these first two games.”