Sporting Kansas City II’s Benny Feilhaber
Thoughts on the match…
It was a good performance. We played in different ways during the game. Obviously, the heat was a factor, and Minnesota is a good team. If I’m not mistaken, I don’t think we have won any games 1-0, so it’s really good to get a result like that. Last week we won 6-1 and in this game, you win 1-0. It’s important to find different ways to win the games as you’re trying to get into the playoffs and obviously preparing for the playoffs. I thought the guys had a really good mentality. It was very good overall.
The message for the last games of the season…
The message has been the same. This team hasn’t been in the playoffs in a really long time, so we want to get there. That was our goal at the beginning of the year, to make the playoffs. We knew how important these three points were, and I think it puts us right at the precipice of being in the playoffs. The other thing I talked about was from experience when I played here for five years. We had some years where we got into the playoffs, but we were backpedaling into it. You don’t want to do that; you don’t want to do that in this playoff format where you are dropping results at the end, and you drop to a lower seed. We want to make sure that in the next five games not only are we playing at our best, but also preparing ourselves for what the playoffs are.
On Alenis Vargas…
It takes a while to get into the groove, right. He’s learning a new system, a new team, he’s played different positions we’ve asked him to play the nine now with all the injuries to Pau [Vidal], Stephen [Afrifa], and so I think he’s done really well. I think he’s found a place whether it be on the right wing or as the nine where he feels comfortable within his role on the team, defensively. Then what that comfort allows him to do is be himself on the attacking side of things which is just so dangerous. I think we’ve all seen that. He is a weapon. He’s been doing really well for the group, and he’s getting rewarded now.
On Rock Chalk Park and the home results…
It’s been great. Last year we weren’t happy here because we weren’t doing well. We weren’t getting results and that’s changed. Look at the last five games. We had 20 goals in five games and only three against. That’s pretty good. We’ve made ourselves comfortable here, we made it our home. They’ve been extremely accommodating; the fans are coming out and 15 points in five games is not too bad.
Sporting Kansas City II’s Josh Coan
Thoughts on the match…
It was good. It was the first time this season we won that close of a game, so I think it shows great progression from the group to grind that out. It was an ugly game, super-hot, but we battled through it and ended up getting those three points.
Your thoughts on the resilience of the group…
I think we are peaking at a good time. We’ve talked a lot about trying to hit rhythm going into the playoffs and we’ve been building momentum to go into that and so I think it’s really important that we keep the results going.
On the message to the team with only five matches left...
Similarly, to the last answer, I think we have to keep going. I think we need to keep peaking at the right time. I think if we get hot going into the playoffs then anything is possible and we are just as good as anyone in this league, so I think we can. We’re really coming for it this year.
