Orlando Pride Head Coach Seb Hines
Opening Statement
“It's a good start to the year, especially with the celebration at the start and the banners and the trophies being in front. It's always a worry because obviously that's in the past and that was all that we achieved last year and trying to flip that mindset of the task at hand. Obviously, priority was winning the game tonight and getting off to a good start. I thought we played some really good football, and we were defensively pretty solid. To score six goals in the NWSL is a massive achievement. It has been a really good day for all of us.”
On what it meant to see the banners raised before the game
“It’s great, again an incredible achievement to get both the Shield and the Championship. It’s incredibly difficult as well in this league, the parody between the teams and all the challenges that come along with it. But to do that for the city, we have always said we want to give back to the city and bring a championship to this city as a representation of what we did last year. To see the banners in our home stadium is great for us. But again, that is in the past. We’re looking forward, we’re looking ahead and again it was a really good performance tonight and we continued the momentum that we started last year.”
What were some adjustments made that led to tonight's success?
"I think motivationally, you know, we had the disappointment of last week of not winning the Challenge Cup. We used that as motivation. You don't want to go through those feelings too often, the feeling of disappointment and the other team celebrating. So, we made a statement today that we were going to get after it. We put immense pressure on Chicago, and getting the early goal definitely helped. Then we were relentless throughout the whole game, from start to finish. It was a great performance, great attitude, and great mentality. The team doing it together was inspiring to see. It wasn't just one individual performance, it was a collective effort from everyone."
Orlando Pride Midfielder Haley McCutcheon
Opening Statement
“Yeah 6-nil, what’s not to love about that? I think something we talked about going into the season was just playing a full 90-minute performance and I think we got off to a good start in doing that.”
On what has led to her jump in goal scoring, from playoffs now leading into the regular season
“I don’t know, I think that with the special players we have and their qualities, they take a lot of attention away from defenders. So, if I find myself getting those opportunities, I just feel like I’ve been at the right place at the right time and made the most of it. I want to continue to do that.”
On setting the tone this game for the season
“Yeah, I think that’s huge. I think scoring goals is usually the last thing to come as we’re going through preseason and finding ourselves in the first match. So, to get six right off the bat is really good to kind of get into a flow. That’s something we’ve worked really hard all preseason doing and we just want to be more dynamic on all fronts, and obviously we did that. If you score six goals it’s going to be tough to lose that game, so we are feeling good about it.”
Orlando Pride Forward Ally Watt
Opening Statement
“Good team effort, we had five different goal scorers. Yeah, it was like everything we’ve been working on all preseason came together. Obviously, we were disappointed with the Challenge Cup performance, not performance, scratch that, with the result. I still think we played amazing in the Challenge Cup so it’s just nice for us to get our footing for the first game of the season and hopefully that will continue over into the rest of the season, even though its long. But yeah, I’m proud of my girls and we stepped up and put on a good show today.”
On the feeling going into the game
“Yeah, the first thing we did today was raise our banners and Kylie [Strom] even said it in her speech before we ran out; that we are officially ending a chapter from last year, but we are going to keep the steam rolling into this year. I think we made a big statement this game, letting you guys know we are defending champions, and we are here to compete this year. People will continuously be against us and that’s fine, it just fuels our fire. But we are here to stay, we are defending champions, and we are going to defend our title.”
On what the moment was like for her to see the banners go up
“It was just like, we didn't get to process what happened last year because we won, celebrated a little bit, came home for the parade, and then dipped out as soon as possible. But yeah, it's just like, it's hard to process the fact that we have that star on our jersey. We did that last year, and it was an amazing year, but we have to focus on this year now. It's part of our history, and it will always help form what we are building on, like what our identity is, but it's not truly who we are. So going into this year, we just focus on this year.”
