💬 Mauricio Pereyra: ' We will keep pushing' following loss at Real Salt Lake

Orlando City Head Coach Oscar Pareja

Overall thoughts on the match 

"Obviously a difficult experience today against Real Salt Lake to have this moment when we are getting our confidence higher and coming from a good stretch of games. Today, we ran into a team that was very effective going forward when they had their chances. I thought we had our chances too, but we didn’t have the capacity to finish our opportunities. We are going to observe it and keep our mentality intact. We have no excuses. Salt Lake were much more effective and obviously, the score reflects that.” 

On keeping the team’s confidence high despite the result 

“This is a competition and obviously in the last two weeks, we have had many games. After we win and after we get results and good performances, we don’t have a chance to celebrate much. Therefore, we have to keep going. We have to come here to Salt Lake and face them and tomorrow we just have to get ready for the next game in Atlanta. There is not much time, and the boys know this is part of our job. We are going to be humble and accept that they were much better in front of the goal and we had to stretch in the second half just trying to look for the equalizer. We have no excuses. We will just get ready for the next game.” 

On conceding two early goals 

“We felt bad conceding the two goals and having those be out of our control even though we work hard on it. At that point of the game where we had chances to score and create a gap between us and Real Salt Lake was probably deserved, but after that, both teams just tried to get the game going. There was not much clarity in the second half as we conceded much more space, but conceding those two goals in the beginning hurt us a lot.”

Orlando City Midfielder Mauricio Pereyra

Overall thoughts on the match 

“It is a difficult moment after we lose and after this result, but it is in this moment as the captain that I believe in the team, and I trust in the team more than ever. We know each other more than ever because we know how hard we are working. It was a difficult time for us as a team. We were not the best after we beat Toronto and now we are not the worst. We have to keep working as we have a game against Atlanta.” 

On if there were tired legs out on the pitch after a long stretch of games 

“No, the game was fine for us. It was different from the first meeting, but we didn’t take our chance. The game opened with the set piece and then after they scored the second on a set piece too. That is part of the game of course, but it is not like they created a lot of chances or they dominated the game. For us, it was a normal game and they scored two goals on set pieces and it opened the game. The second half they had more spaces and quality with players who know how to play in behind the fullbacks. They created a lot of chances because we were trying to push more. We will keep pushing and keep going and today was a difficult night for us knowing the next game will be hard also to beat Atlanta.” 

On the first 20 minutes of the match

“I think what we can control is the concentration on set pieces, knowing that we can open some games with set pieces and corner kicks and free kicks like we did. The concentration on these plays is like five or six seconds when you have to be 120 percent concentrated. Today, we lost the mark and were not in the best shape in this way. If we probably scored some of the chances we created in the beginning, it would be a different game. We know that and now we can look back. We keep pushing and keep going knowing what we have in front of us.”