Orlando City SC Head Coach Oscar Pareja
Opening Statement
“Obviously, a few words will not tell the whole story about how we feel tonight after not getting this result. We want to still be grateful for our fans and the people who were here pushing us and present in the stadium and the energy that we felt from all these people that deserved much more than this. We had a good season and had a bunch of things to be proud of, but it is very painful at this moment to accept that we are not achieving the objective. That tells us that we have grown. From the bottom of my heart, I am very grateful for the players and all the effort they put in during the season. Now to the game today, it was a playoff game. I thought New York had a few shots and we knew it was a very rocky game for both. In those options, they took it, and we let it go and did not take them. We didn’t take ours when we had the chance and that is what happened.”
On the Red Bulls scoring shortly into the second half
"It has been preached by us all the time that these kind of games in the playoffs, tight games, that set plays and unnecessary fouls and things that happen in these scenarios are things we have to control. That one we didn’t. I don’t think we came out flat at all, I thought we kept the intensity. It is just an unnecessary foul and set play. We won our last game similarly. [The message at halftime] was just continue with matching that intensity that we had in the first half against a team that was pushing and not proposing more to the game than pressing. We had two chances in their box, and we wanted to get better sequences and get better later in the game, but we knew that in some opportunity we would have that chance to score in a tight game. There was not a lot of space in the game.”
On the foul that led to the Red Bull’s goal
“I have not seen it yet. We are dealing with this frustration, and I have not seen it. What I saw in the game is not just that [Andrés Reyes] came out free, but also the ball into the area was very tight. I will have to see it. What you said about the unnecessary foul is correct. We are not going to blame the players because we commit fouls all the time, but in these kinds of games it seems like those kinds of things are the tiebreakers.”
Orlando City SC Defender Robin Jansson
Opening Statement
“Tough to say right now. Like you said, we started off quite badly this year until the middle or end of June. From there, we had a really good, strong run there for a couple of months until the playoffs. We finished in fourth place, where we weren’t even close to halfway through the season. It shows that this group put in the work even though it was a bad start. Tough, low confidence but we managed together as a group to shift it around and make it better. After today’s game, it’s super hard to get into that stuff now. It's quiet in the locker room. Everyone is disappointed. We didn’t really get what we wanted from this game. We knew Red Bull [New York] was going to come pressing like the old Red Bulls from three or four years ago, which they did. In the beginning of the game, we played simple, and we tried to play a little bit, but we didn't really break through their pressure. We had some good chances in the first half to put it in the goal and in these types of games we have to put the goals in there. They got a free kick and scored on that one. From there we tried to force it in the end, the last 15-20 minutes, but it didn’t go our way this time.”
On trying to break down New York’s defense
"It's hard. We had it against Charlotte [FC] and faced it a couple times in the season too. That’s nothing new for us but today it didn't go our way.”
On the approach after not playing New York Red Bulls for a few months
“I think they changed a little bit the way they played. They became more of a pressing team than they were before, like I said earlier. We didn’t see that the first time we met them in the beginning of the season and then away in [New York]. But we were ready for it. Sometimes you have to play a little bit simpler at those times because of the dignity of the game. You have to follow the flow sometimes, but maybe we followed the flow a little bit too much. It got us in their traps and pressure. We didn’t really get out of it playing like we normally do. But going back to your question, Red Bull was probably changing to pressing which they had success in the earlier games of the playoffs and end of the season.”
Orlando City SC Midfielder Martín Ojeda
Opening Statement
“It’s difficult in this moment to put a conclusion on that game. The only thing I can think to say right now is that I’m happy to be a part of this club. I’m happy to be a part of this institution with such humble and hardworking people. The coaches, the technical staff, everyone that works in the club. I'm just very happy to be part of that group. I think we all deserved a great final but those are things that happen in life. Tonight, our issue was not being as clinical in the final third and not being able to finish. We saw that and all tried to push to overcome that. Everybody left everything they had out on the field. You have to be mentally strong to move past this. It hurts, I’ll say again, it hurts because it does. But like I said, happy to be a part of this group.”
On what the Red Bulls did to complicate their attack
"They're a great team, right? They made it to the conference final. They're a really tough team to play against. They really take away those spaces and take away the spaces that we like to play into, and they press really high. It's a situation where I think we have to have a little bit more patience and a little bit calmer in those moments, but at the same time, we played a great game ourselves. We had two or three chances in the in the first half that there were really good chances for us that could have changed the game. In the second half, it wasn't as it wasn't as clear, but we had a few more approximations where, if we were a little more clinical, we could have changed the game in those moments as well. So, the only thing for us to do moving forward is to continue feeling this pain, to continue preparing and prepare for next year as well, now, when we face Red Bull again, just continue preparing, honestly, the same way that we did for this game. We gave up a goal on a set piece, which are always dangerous no matter who you're playing. So, we just have to continue working to get better.”
On his overall thoughts this season
“I think a lot of things happened this year, right? I think there were a lot of lessons that taught me a lot. One of those lessons being to overcome and to rise above bad moments that you may be in. Earlier this year, I was giving an interview when we were in 14th, and I was asked a lot of questions and one of those questions was, ‘how do you guys lift this team up?’ And the answer to that, I said that I will continue to say is together as one group, pushing forward, sticking together. The only thing you can do in those moments is come together as a group, pick your head up, push forward and always continue to persevere and maintain that mental fortitude. Looking at those moments, everybody came together. They came together as one group. There's a lot of people behind the scenes that don't get talked about, that continue to help us and help us continue to grow and put us in positions where we can overcome those moments. So, looking at that, I think that's one of the biggest lessons that I learned this year. I want to thank a couple of people specifically, Nico Lodeiro and Luis Muriel. I think the three of us all really helped push each other this year, and just continuing to grow together and continuing to really push each other and just stay together as one group. I think that's one of the biggest lessons that I learned this year, and in that walk from 14th to fourth.”
