Sporting KC II Manager Benny Feilhaber
Thoughts on the match...
It was an entertaining match for the fans. It was highly contested. They're a pretty good team, very well organized, they try to press and try to put you under. They took advantage of a set piece where we were slow in dropping. We had a line on the 18 that we should have dropped an extra two yards before the ball surpassed our players, but we were too late and they took advantage of it. It was a good reaction from our guys in the second half. We had opportunities but weren't clean enough to capitalize. It's not a game like last week's where we couldn't take positives. We can learn from it. These guys can be rewarded when we put it all together, hopefully, in a week.
On the positives to take away from today...
I thought Paul [Agyei] had a pretty good game. It was his first game with the team, he played as our nine and he was strong with the ball. He had moments where he pressed the other team. He was unfortunate on the one chance he had, maybe if it was a little bit cleaner or maybe if it was a little bit better of a pass, but he was good for us. Kayden Pierre was good on the right side, very energetic. Other guys grew into the game. We had slow starts from some defenders, but I thought Cole [McLagan] and Jahon [Rad] grew into the game. It's a growing process. Nobody is a final product by any means but there's a process to be had. We're going to keep grinding and try to figure things out for next week.
On the effort he saw tonight vs. last week...
This game compared to last game was night and day not only in terms of effort but in terms of the ability to compete. Last week we didn't compete at all and this week we competed. St Louis kicked us in the mouth in the first 10-15 minutes of the game because we didn't come ready to go, and we paid for it. But, in terms of competing, especially in the second half that's what it needs to look like. It needs to look like that every game for 90 minutes if we want to win games.
