Orlando City SC Head Coach Oscar Pareja
Opening statement
“I think it was a good match for two teams. You have an offensive proposal or initiative; I think early in the game we found a team in Nashville that wanted to use the spaces offensively and we didn’t find the team who wants to drop and I have to say that they did a good job in that part, so we ended up playing the first half lower than we wanted and despite our goal, our offensive was probably not as frequent as we wanted. But still, I think throughout the game we played well, we should have had more energy at the beginning of the second half. I told the boys ‘We started with that energy, but we didn’t keep it’ and then the goals, after our review, we scored good goals, and they ended up scoring good goals in the end. I have no complaints in this moment from that.”
On the result
“It’s true, I think it’s something that, today, showed us that we have to be on our toes all the time. When you see that something is fixed and something is good, and then in the game comes and exposes you in this manner, it just tells us that we have to keep working. I’m not going to say that we are not the team that we were yesterday, we are still that team and surely the boys made a great effort today. The games that we are playing in these short periods and recovering, I have to say that what I see is a team working and trying to make things happen. Unfortunately, today, we conceded goals in locations that we shouldn’t have, but I have to credit Nashville, as well.”
On the idea of rotating lineups for tonight’s match
“We had some intentions to bring all the players into the match, but we had two or three players that received an injury. We decided to keep the team, especially defending and the shape we had been doing it in. We wanted to refresh our front, and in the middle, we are waiting for Eduard [Atuesta]. Today, we obviously had the youngsters too, that are doing a good job, but today we wanted to go with this and [put our best foot forward], and we did that today. Now, we have to recover for the next game. We’re professionals and we can try to see if these two days can help us to recover. We thought about rotations, and we took care of our offensive side today, probably more than our defensive side and our midfield. But let’s see, let’s see how it goes over the week.”
Orlando City SC Forward Marco Pašalić
Opening statement
“It’s difficult so fast after the game to say something on this loss. We started well in the game, and we played really good. The tactics were also really good and then came our first goal. When we conceded the goal to Nashville really fast, that was a big problem, and then we conceded the second goal before halftime, which is also difficult. But we had to believe, and we came out in the second half to make everything better, but then we made the mistakes. When we scored the second goal it was 2-2 and I think we had the game under control and one moment later we were not paying attention. They got the goal, and we missed the luck at the end, and I think it hurts a lot.”
On playing so many tough games in a short span
“I think it's our job. It's what we get paid for, it’s what we love. You have to carry this, that you play a lot, so you have to take time to have really good regeneration. Also, in this small period between the games, like I said, it's difficult, not only for us, but also for the other teams. You have to give everything, you have to leave the field with zero energy after the game. Then, you know, you make everything right. And it would be better if we had won, but like I said, we lose and this hurts a lot now.”
