New England Revolution Head Coach Jay Heaps
On the game:
“Credit to D.C. – they came in and played a good game beat us 3-1.”
On the second half:
I don’t think we ever really did much in the game to really do enough to win. I think we’ve got to go and look at the film. We lost 3-1, and it’s unfortunate because we should have had a little bit more energy. I felt like the energy wasn’t good enough.”
On the team’s upcoming road trip:
“We’ve just got to turn around, recover and get ready for Saturday.”
New England Revolution midfielder Juan Toja
On the loss:
“Obviously I feel bad because we lost. It was a great chance for us to go forward. It was very disappointing for me and for us, for the players, for New England. We tried to do our best, we were close to it, but unfortunately these things happen and we lost tonight.”
On how the game changed when D.C. United went up 2-1:
“They scored at the end of the first half, which is hard. But we talked in the locker room, and we were focused. Since the first minute, we knew that we were going to have our chances. We jumped into it for the second half. I think we started so much better than the first half. We controlled the ball very good in the second half. I scored and then we had a couple of chances. The game was there for both as they had their chances too, but unfortunately in that corner they scored and then the spaces were very open as we were trying to score in any way and then unfortunately we conceded the third goal. I think we did a good job, we fought a lot and you can see that in the field. I’m very disappointed. I don’t know what to say.”
On the upcoming road trip:
“This is soccer – it works like that. We have a lot of games coming. We have one on Saturday night in Los Angeles. We have to forget this, but we have to see what was our good stuff and what was our mistakes and learn from it. Everytime you learn from good things and bad things, so that’s what I personally do and I know the guys and the coach will stick with us and tell us. We have to look forward. We have MLS coming up, [and] we are looking forward to it.”
New England Defender A.J. Soares
On the team’s overall performance:
I thought we were the better team and should have got a better result if we would have really taken the game into our own hands but we let them stay in it and we let them come at us. In the end, they beat us because we let them beat us.
On the team’s multiple near-misses:
Yeah, we had chances but we gave up three goals. We made mistakes on goals and we really shouldn’t have let any goal in. Every single one of them was kind of a turn-off, but that happens in soccer and sometimes you have to score four to win. We didn’t score four and we let in more than we scored, so that’s just what happens.
On the team scoring at the start of the second half:
That was our goal. We wanted to come out and score in the first couple minutes and we did. We thought if we did that, we could take the game to them and get back on an even playing field knowing that we could just beat them in that half and take it one half at a time. But we let them back in it, we let them stay in it, and it hurt us in the end.
On the team’s upcoming road trip:
We’re professionals. We’re going to let it go right now, tonight, and start thinking about the Chivas game. This game’s over already in my mind. We’re all focused on the Chivas game. We’re going to do whatever we can to keep moving up the table in the league and Open Cup is over for us. We’ll think about it next year, but from now on it’s done.
