Orlando Pride Head Coach Marc Skinner
Thoughts on the match
“I think you can see it for yourself. It will be probably the lowest Orlando Pride has been and only from there can you rise up. My job is to make sure that we manage till the end of the season and then focus on developing the players, making sure they are growing and then recruiting in the offseason to make sure we have a team that continues to have the mental resilience to be successful. If I look at the game today, I thought we were excellent. Our mental resilience at the back considering we’ve given away three sloppy goals against Seattle [Reign]. We had just— mistakes, rookie mistakes from a counterattack which they know how to defend; they just make decisions that are incorrect because they’re young and inexperienced. That’s the summary of the game, I think you’ve seen it for yourself. It was a sucker punch at the end and we didn’t do enough in the final third thinking wise, we didn’t think enough to be able to score the chances that we should have created more.”
On the defensive players against Sam Kerr
“I thought they were brilliant. I thought Ash[lyn Harris] made some world-class saves. I thought Ali [Krieger] and Shelina [Zadorsky] were excellent. I think everyone makes positional mistakes and decisions, but she won’t lack in effort and heart to give to the team. Obviously Kris[ten Edmonds], I think it’s her third or fourth 90-minute in the whole season and I think that they were very, very resilient. I think we need to help them at times because they shouldn’t have to defend that effectively, but those are areas that I know where we need to be able to help our team and recruit and support. But I thought they were excellent, I thought that they didn’t deserve that, they did not deserve that sucker punch at the end. If you look at it technically, we’ve got a 2v1 on the wide channel, and we’ve got our fullback running wide to cover that channel when there’s a central counterattack. So that’s a rookie mistake in her head where you foul her, if you foul her and bring the player down, she never gets through and that’s just something that you can’t coach. You can’t in a training session go ‘Now foul her and bring her down because it’s the 90th minute.’ You’ve got to let her learn from that and that’s what this season has been about for me. Honestly, I’ve got more grey hairs this year than I’ll ever have, but it doesn’t dampen my spirit because I can see the vision, I can see what I’m doing, I can see what pieces I need, I can see the players in this league that I need, I can see the players from around the world that I need. I’ll go by hook or by crook, my aim is to get them in.”
On the message to the players after the Chicago red card
“To be able to switch their shape across. We were so passive. First half, there might have been a mentality hangover from the Seattle [Reign] game where we gave away the game in 17 minutes. We were naturally a little bit more defensive in our mindset in terms that the girls were getting it and keeping it rather than pushing the lines, and you can’t think like that in this league. You have to be offensive when you win the ball, and so we were moving behind the lines rather than behind their lines and that was why we couldn’t really get out and impose ourselves on the game enough. We’re also missing some key players. The quality of the players that we’re missing if you look at that you go, I fancy playing against Orlando at the minute, because they have got a lot of rookies, a lot of players that are learning and getting experience. I just think when we got into that moment where we got the advantage, you need to be able to switch their shape across and keep moving the ball, because you can keep putting the ball in the box but unless the delivery is perfect we haven’t got the forwards that can head the ball effectively. So we have to play to our strengths, keep moving their shape and creating spaces. Unfortunately, the passes were not good enough in the final bit and that's what hurt us. It’s really simple. We knew how to do it, but sometimes you have to coax the player to go, ‘turn, turn, turn’, and then they’ll do it and you’ll see it’s effective but they have got to keep doing it. When you got a narrow shape you have to keep playing around it to stretch it, and we just didn’t do it effective enough in that final block and that’s why they ended up counterattacking. Look guys, when you got Sam Kerr on the field, she’s a difference for Chicago. She’s the difference for Chicago because without her they’re a totally different team.”
Orlando Pride Defender Kristen Edmonds
Thoughts on the game
“I actually thought we were pretty in control of the match tonight. I thought we put together a solid 94 minutes and then the last minute of the game I think we kind of just switched off for a second and unfortunately they took full advantage of that. They finished their one chance and we didn’t finish any of ours, so in soccer you just have to put together a complete game and we just didn’t do that tonight.”
On not giving spaces to Sam Kerr tonight
“Sam [Kerr] is a world-class player. Obviously, whenever we go over film we take a very close look at her and on the field we are always knowing where she is and paying close attention. When she is kind of up there by herself we just make sure to just try and kind of get in her head a bit and make sure that we always know where she is and I think that we did that pretty well tonight. She got in a few times in behind, but Ash[lyn Harris] came up with that massive save 1v1 and then I think we paid attention to her pretty well tonight, but Chicago is a good team, you know they’re in playoff contention. Like I said before you kind of have to play that full complete game and they’re always going to hang around and even though they went down a man they were still pushing numbers forward and then that last counterattack kind of just got us.”
On Ashlyn [Harris]’s outstanding performance
“Ash[lyn Harris] kept us in that game. She had a few good saves tonight, world-class saves, and it’s always nice to be super confident in your keeper behind you knowing that if they get in behind, we still have a chance and Ash came up massive tonight.”
Orlando Pride Forward Claire Emslie
Thoughts on match
“I thought we should have put our chances away like, we had the opportunity to win the game. You know we worked hard. The first half wasn’t very good, but I think the second half we were much better, but at the end of the day we just need to put the ball in the back of the net.”
On the team mentality after Chicago was reduced to 10 players
“I think just tactically we knew that we were a number up, so we tried to use that to our advantage switching the ball, because we knew they couldn’t cover as much of the pitch. We managed to get the ball into the wide areas and get the ball in the box. It was just putting the ball in the net that we couldn’t do.”
On how the team played when in possession
“I’d say well. Second half we had more possession, first half we were just breaking all the time, but we still created some chances, got some shots on target. Second half we definitely created a lot more, it’s just the final ball we need to work on to improve.”
