Swope Park Rangers head coach Nikola Popovic
Overall, we played a good game. At the start, some of the boys were nervous. The first part of first half was difficult for us. But as time passed, we were able to settle down and focus. We have a strict model we follow. We always play the same way. Some dynamics can be changed but I was very happy to come from behind. This was the first professional game for four players. To see them perform this way on their debut, I'm not surprised. We've been working for seven weeks and we've been consistent. If you are here, I believe in you and that's why you are going to have a chance and I believe you will play well.
Swope Park Rangers forward Daniel Salloi
I think we reacted well to going down a goal. We worked together as a team and that was the plan.
Swope Park Rangers forward Latif Blessing
It felt great to get the goal, especially in my first time playing in Kansas City. I'm so happy. This game gave me more time to play and more experience. The coaches are teaching me to how to play the game and learn faster.
Swope Park Rangers forwad Kharlton Belmar
This was awesome. I feel like we put a lot of hard work in. It definitely showed. We played well together and moved the ball well. We saw it in the end product. It definitely felt like we were a little nervous but it was the first game. The goal woke us up a bit and we were able to get one back. The goal before half really helped. I scored my goal on a great effort from Parker. That's something we worked on all week. It thankfully found my foot and I was able to put it away.
OKC Energy FC head coach Jimmy Nielsen
I thought we started well. We defended well on the ball and had some dangerous moments going forward. We scored a great goal to go up 1-0. Then the last 10-15 minutes of the first half, we started defending too much and way too deep; we struggled going forward. I thought we had that adjusted for the second half but, to be fair to Swope, they came out strong. To win this game today, we made way too many individual mistakes. It's tough to win games when you make mistakes like that. We lost too many individual battles. We can talk formation, movement and everything but at the end of the day you have to win your individual battles and we didn't do that today. You have to get out there with the belief that you can beat your individual opponent and way too many times we lost those individual battles. That was a big struggle today. We have to learn from it and move forward. I still strongly believe we have a good team here that can do some damage in this league. We just need to get this turned around and get on the right track.
OKC Energy FC defender Coady Andrews
It was a good ball in and I got some separation early from the defender and was able to get my head on it...I think we were right there, but for whatever reason we got picked apart a little bit and we broke down in the final third. I think we're going to be alright. We just have to keep plugging away.
