Swope Park Rangers Head Coach Paulo Nagamura
On tonight’s game…
I think for the most part we were second best, defensively and offensively. When you play a good team like Portland who is organized with some good players they’ll punish you, so it was definitely one of those performances that we didn’t come out ready to play and it’s disappointing.
On the first half goal…
We made little adjustments during halftime here and there, but I think it was just a lack of urgency and a lack of aggressiveness to play tonight.
On moving forward with the next game…
It’s another big game for us, but I like to take every game as a big game because that will translate to being really important especially against Reno. They have done very well recently. It’s going to be another difficult one that if we don’t bring the urgency and effort and quality, we won’t get the results we want to see.
Swope Park Rangers Defender Justin Bilyeu
On starting back after injury…
It was great. I spent a lot of time out so it was really nice to be back on the field.
On playing in Children’s Mercy Park…
It was amazing playing here, especially with having my family here to watch me play again after an injury since it’s close to home, so it’s really good to be in Kansas City.
On preparing for next match…
We just need to go and regroup, train really hard this week and great ready for our next match.
Swope Park Rangers Midfielder Rassambek Akhmatov
On his first game with the Rangers…
It was difficult because I need to work harder on training every day. It was three or four months without playing in a game. I like playing here though, and we will see what’s going to happen going forward.
On playing in Children’s Mercy Park…
It’s a very nice stadium and field. I watched all of the games from Sporting Kansas City here and to now play on this field is a really great feeling.
Portland Timbers 2 Head Coach Cameron Knowles
On the first goal of the game…
It’s always, always important to get the first goal, and we’ve been fortunate that we have been a good team on the road. We’re pretty confident that we will score goals and we’re just fortunate that it came when it did.
On the second half of the season…
I think it’s just getting back on track. We started off really well and then we had a little bit of a downfall about a month or so ago. So, to get back to having a clean sheet and getting three points on the road is big for us.
On preparing for next game…
We have a quick turnaround with playing at home and having a few guys that are a bit hurt and will have obvious difficult conditions to play in here, so we just have to make sure that we physically turn the guys around and see who’s available for midweek.
