NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION HEAD COACH JAY HEAPS
Thoughts on the win
“I thought we had a good gameplan coming in, and our guys performed really well at the beginning of the game and really set the tone early. We wanted to come here and play and put them under pressure. Obviously, throughout the game a lot of things happen. You deal with things, they had to deal with a couple of things. It was a little strange having to play a match ten on ten, but I felt we adapted well. They’re a great team and we take our hat off to them but we’re excited for the win.”
Adjusting after red cards
“When [Imbongo] goes off, Juan Agudelo is such a versatile player that we just shifted him further up top, we were able to move Juan Toja wide. For us, we didn’t have to maneuver as much as they did by taking Ricardo Clark out of the midfield. So we were a little bit more balanced in what we were able to do without changing too much of our gameplan.”
On Juan Agudelo’s performance
“I thought Juan was great. I thought Juan did a nice job of holding the ball. He was getting grabbed and pulled and pushed and he didn’t lose his focus and held on for some good plays. Not only that but he kept it for us in some really tight spots, difficult areas. Just excited to have him out there and doing well for us.”
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION FORWARD DIEGO FAGUNDEZ
Thoughts on the win
“I think everyone on the team really wanted these three points. We brought a lot of energy to the game, we knew it was going to be a tough game but we brought it to them.”
On the goal
“Well it all started with Juan [Agudelo]. Juan got the ball wide and then he gave it to me. I gave it back to Lee [Nguyen] and he gave it back to me and I just saw Clyde [Simms] on the top of the eighteen so I gave him a pass. I followed through it and then he did a beautiful lay-off where I could just touch it around the defender and get a goal.”
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION FORWARD JUAN AGUDELO
On taking three points in Houston
“It feels awesome. Not just to win 1-0, but 2-0 is huge. There’s a lot of momentum right now getting toward the middle of the season, playoffs getting closer and closer. It’s huge to win this away game. There’s a couple home games coming up and hopefully we can make a push to be on top of the league.”
On his debut
“It was awesome, getting to know the guys, playing with the guys. It’s awesome playing in front of a guy like Lee [Nguyen]. I was just receiving and getting great balls.”
On the chemistry with the team
“I think this is huge, for a new player to come in and get a win like this and be a part of it. Today I feel so much closer to the guys. We fought together as a team and a unit and came out with a win over here, which is not easy.”
On the own goal
“It was just a counterattack. [Chris] Tierney tried to cross the ball after I played it to him and I saw that the defender wasn’t really looking at me. So I just put my body in the way and tried to get anything that I could on it and put it toward the net. I think the goal was counted as an own goal, but it doesn’t really matter because it gave so much space for our defense to give us a 2-0 lead.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO HEAD COACH DOMINIC KINNEAR
Thoughts on the match
“I’m very disappointed with the way we played tonight. It was 1-0 and I thought we had created a lot of chances, but we just could not put the ball in the back of the net. We had to risk going forward and they scored a goal. Other than that, I’m just disappointed.”
On if the red card changed the match
“It didn’t change it. Both teams had to play with 10 men. I thought the referee handled it pretty well. You need to tackle people running with the ball and you need to have good, smart possession around the box. That is what we failed to do.”
On the red card
“In that situation, I did not see anything. I just came in and watched the replay at halftime and I think the referee handled it well. I think he had help from the linesman, but during the match, I had no idea what took place so I had to rely on replay to give a good opinion.”
HOUSTON DYNAMO GOALKEEPER TALLY HALL
Thoughts on the match
“It was a disjointed effort. If you look at how hard the guys played, you can’t take away from the fact that guys tried hard. We were giving everything we had, but we weren’t working smart. And you aren’t going to win a lot of games if you aren’t working smart.
“When you lose two games at home, these are bad things, but we still are a very good team. We still have some of the best talent in the league and as a team, when we play well together we are the best team in the league.
“We want to win MLS Cup and performances like this … let’s call them an opportunity to see fundamentally what can go completely wrong. Then we fix that moving forward. It feels terrible right now. I don’t often remember feeling this bad after a game. There have been some bad loses, but this one feels bad. But we have too many positive attributes on this team to feel down on our luck. We have a tough game against Kansas City. This team needs to rally. It’s obviously a difficult place to play but we are looking forward to the challenge because we know we can do better.”
On New England playing a physical match
“I think teams have known for a while that we are a physical team. And to compete with us, they are going to have to be physical as well. It’s no surprise they came out more physical. It’s a surprise, to me, that we let it work as well as it did.”
