New England Revolution Head Coach Jay Heaps
On the final 20 minutes of play that led to the tying goal:
Coach Heaps: “Obviously frustrated that we’re playing well through the middle to the middle third of the field. The final third, we’re just a little bit off. We’re trying to do a little too much, but I just think there was some resilience. I’m proud of the way the guys fought because it wasn’t a lack of effort or energy. It was a little bit of energy. We needed a little bit more energy, but it wasn’t effort. Guys were working really hard. They really go down and get one chance and score. Credit [Darlington] Nagbe. I thought that was a fabulous ball that he delivered to the back post, but other than that, there wasn’t much there. Everything that they got was from our mistakes. So we have to be diligent in that, but we just got to keep going at it. It’s not one of those things where we can hold our heads down. We got to lift ourselves up and get after another game with a quick turnaround.”
On the energy that Femi Hollinger-Janzen brought into the game:
Coach Heaps: “He brought the energy. I was going to say that next. I thought Femi brought a level of energy that changed the whole thing and really won some balls. We weren’t going to play through him all the time, so we had to win some balls back. It was his energy, his commitment to make our team go forward and I was really happy with that because he was a young guy. I think guys fed off of his energy and it made Je-Vaughn [Watson] work a little bit more. It made him get a little higher and it’s something to look forward to.”
On the message to the team at halftime:
Coach Heaps: “Exactly not to let a counter attack goal happen. It’s just that we talked about it. We work on that because we know right now teams are really starting to sit in on us. I think I’ll take those chances, if we’re going to give one or two chances to a team against us in a game. I think they had one shot on goal. I didn’t look at the stats yet, or two at the end. When that happens, for me, we have to be diligent not to over commit guys, but to layer ourselves. That was the conversation at halftime and we didn’t do a great job on that one play, but the idea was to go out and give everything we had. You saw at the end. We were going for three points. Even after we scored, we were trying to get everyone forward to get three points. We didn’t get the three like we talked about at halftime and leading up to this game, but a quick turnaround. We have to get three on Saturday.”
On Charlie Davies’ level of play and his injury:
Coach Heaps: “Yeah, disappointed. We’ve been inching him back and not wanting him to do too much because he’s […] Let’s be honest, he’s a new father and he’s up a lot of hours and it’s a lot of work for him off the field. And then we get him back and he carries a big load on the pitch for us, so we’ve been legging him in and tonight was the night we kind of had him marked in a start, starting last week. We were really saying, all right, let’s get him in the mid-week game and then him going down, was a pretty big blow. And you hate to burn a sub. And then you hate it to be Charlie [Davies], our center forward, who I think was chomping at the bit to get a goal. He’s the one guy on our team that really has that hunger for the goal a little bit ahead of everyone else and it was tough to see him go down. I’m not sure how bad it is. I have not been able to go in there, but he walked off and his getting treatment right now, so we’ll see if he can turn it around.”
On Donnie Smith’s performance:
Coach Heaps: “I thought Donnie [Smith] did great tonight. I think it’s his first game, like you said. We’ve been sending him to Rochester so he’s been getting minutes and I think that’s an important part of Donnie. He’s strong. He’s physical. He can make plays. He’s fast as there is in this league. So I thought he had a good game. I thought he did all the things we asked and provided service. Now we just need that final ball.”
On players like Diego Fagundez and Lee Nguyen pressing in the final third:
Coach Heaps: “Yeah. I think we’re pressing a little bit. I think we work on it all week. We talk about it. We see it in practice, things happening very well. And then we get in the game, and I do, I think we started off flowing fine and then after 15-20, if we don’t have that goal, we’re not […] I always talk about, we want to be urgent, but we want to not rush. And I felt like tonight we were rushing. We were rushing and not playing urgently. There’s two different ways. Urgently is you’re moving it quickly, but there’s a purpose behind it. Tonight, I felt like there was a lot of dribbling to open space up, rather than passing a moving to make us play. So, we’ll go back and look at the film, but yeah, I think that’s a fair assessment. Little bit of pressing and they’re also getting marked too. I do want to credit the teams that we’re playing against. I think they’re doing a good job against those guys and it’s going to be all of us together to free those guys up and not let them press and make sure that we get back to playing the way we know how to play.”
On the quick turnaround between games:
Coach Heaps: “Well we got three new guys in the lineup, so we’ll reassess it tonight. This part of the year, it’s early, not too early, but early enough where guys are fit and ready to go, so we’ll make the assessment. I think once we watch this and get our regens [regenerations] and our training in tomorrow and the next day, we’ll assess a little bit better, but I have no hesitation that our group is going to be ready to play Saturday.”
New England Revolution Defender Andrew Farrell
On what is missing in the final third:
Farrell: “That’s a good question. I don’t know. We have the talent. We have the guys who score the goals they did last year. I think it’s a good question for someone else; I play defense, so maybe I’m not the right guy to ask that. We’re keeping working. It’s good at the end when there’s a little bit more urgency. You can see the guys with a little bit more movement. I think we were a little stale in the first half. They obviously defended really well and set back in the box. When we’ve got Lee [Ngyuen] off the ball moving, Diego [Fagundez] checking in, Kelyn [Rowe] and Donnie [Smith] on the wide, Je-Vaughn [Watson] going out wide, you move them around a little bit and we can get some chances. It was good, Femi [Hollinger-Janzen] came in and created that chance, and obviously, you take the point away. Hopefully, the next time we’re talking, it’s three.”
On what he saw on Portland’s goal:
Farrell: “It was a long ball. [Fanendo] Adi held the ball up pretty well. I think when they made the sub, Nagbe was playing a little bit as a 10. He gets a little bit of space and slips the ball to [Darlington] Nagbe making a run in between, so I came out, closed out, and he played a good ball to the back side. [Jack Barmby] didn’t catch it as well as he wanted to. I think if he caught it as well, we probably would have had the save. I think Adi comes across Bobby [Shuttleworth] and it kind of throws him off a little bit, makes Bobby not be able to commit and, you know, it was a goal. They had two shots on goal, that was one of them, so it sucks, but move on, quick turnaround.”
On if the quick turnaround helps them move past from this result:
Farrell: “There’s nothing we can do about that game now. I think it’s two points that we lost, but take the point and move on to Orlando, like I said. Orlando’s a good team coming in. We’ve got to focus on that. We’ve got to start defending, getting shutouts, and starting to score some goals.”
On the play of Donnie Smith:
Farrell: “He’s a good player. He’s been here for about as long as I’ve been here. He’s gotten some chances here and there. I think he did well. His positioning has gotten a lot better throughout the year. I think he did well. He’s a good guy to have. He’s been working with Chris Tierney a lot, learning what he does and stuff like that, and he has a good left foot. I thought he did well. He’s got the pace, and when the experience comes, he’ll be even better.”
New England Revolution Defender Donnie Smith
On making his home debut with the start tonight:
Smith: “It was awesome, because I hadn’t played at home yet in my career. It was great to be out in front of the home fans. I found out a couple days ago that I was going to be starting, so Coach [Jay Heaps] helped me prepare to get in the right state of mind to be able to play the full 90, go out there and get crosses. That is really what he wanted, for me to be active as much as possible.”
On making his first start at left back at the MLS level:
Smith: “I felt pretty comfortable. The first 15 minutes, obviously, I was a little hectic, nervous. Once I got a couple passes off, got a couple of crosses off, I felt pretty comfortable in the game. All the nerves go away and you just play.”
On the team’s performance and earning a single point:
Smith: “Obviously, you want to take three points at home, but as you guys saw in the game, we obviously peppered them with crosses, shots. It’s just a matter of time until you get one or two and the floodgates open. I think everyone will see a lot more goals out of us.”
On the challenges of playing against Portland team set on defending:
Smith: “We worked on our early balls in practice, and I think for the most part, we got a lot of early balls in. They dealt with them well. Maybe a couple times here or there, we should put a little bit deeper so they are running more towards the goal, could result in an own goal. They did a good job sitting back and countering us.”
New England Revolution Forward Juan Agudelo
On replacing Charlie Davies:
Agudelo: “There’s a lot of guys that were fit to go in. As soon as I saw Charlie [Davies] go down, I started warming up very quickly and went in right away. It took me a couple minutes to get into the rhythm again, and warmed up at halftime a little bit more and felt better second half.”
On the difficulties of getting ready to enter the game so quickly:
Agudelo: “Yeah, it’s tough especially mentally, when you know that you’ve had a hamstring problem and hamstrings need a good warm up, but I was able to get my jog in and luckily halftime was there so that I could get a little bit longer warm up.”
On the play that led to the goal:
Agudelo: “Coach [Jay Heaps] always stresses to push the ball at the point of attack. They were packing it in, so Kelyn [Rowe] got a good ball, played it across. Je-Vaughn [Watson] with his speed overlapped and he was an animal today, and was he was able to get the ball back in, and me and Femi [Hollinger-Janzen] were there to put pressure on the defender and he just put it in his own goal.”
On breaking through the back of the Portland defense:
Agudelo: “It’s tough. You just have to have patience and I thought we did a lot of that. If we had more minutes and if the game went to 100 minutes, I feel like we would have won the game, but we ran out of time.”
On getting one point and the urgency to earn three on Saturday:
Agudelo: “Yeah, I feel like three games in such a short period of time, you’ve got to get at least four points. So yeah, the good thing is that we have a quick turnaround and we’ve got to recover our bodies so that we’re ready for Saturday against a good Orlando team.”
On what needs to be better in the final third:
Agudelo: “Just a little bit of sharpness. I mean, give credit to the Portland defenders, they were pretty solid, but I would say a little bit of sharpness and maybe some players, a little bit more selfishness to just maybe get a shot off, whatever, a deflection and maybe it goes in.”
New England Revolution Forward Femi Hollinger-Janzen
On his near goal at the end:
Hollinger-Janzen: “Oh yeah, the ball got played wide over the top with Je-Vaughn [Watson] making that run on the wide side, played by Koff’ [Koffie}. Unfortunately, I didn’t get anything on it. The defender actually got it and put on goal.”
On his feelings moving forward:
Hollinger-Janzen: “It gives me confidence going forward. I’m hungry for the next one, the next opportunity to get a goal there. I just want to make sure I put it away.”
On getting more comfortable at the MLS level:
Hollinger-Janzen: “Yeah, definitely. I’m definitely getting more comfortable, getting more confident as I go out there and play. I’m more relaxed, and I just have to play my game.”
On the importance of getting three points on Saturday:
Hollinger-Janzen: “Very important. It’s a necessity to get those three points.”
Portland Timbers Head Coach Caleb Porter
On tonight’s result and lineup:
Coach Porter: “We had guys out today, including two of our three DP’s. So we felt like we needed to put out a lineup and plan that would fit this group, fit this game. We knew New England would have a lot of the ball so we put a team out could hit them on the counter. I thought we were excellent defensively, they had a really tough time breaking us down. Obviously, it’s unfortunate to give up a goal on one of the last plays of the game, but I thought overall the plan was executed very well. We’ll take the point, and we’ll take the positives. I thought we were very solid today. And when you look at the back four and our goalkeeper, Nat Borchers is the only one out of those five guys that played in the championship game, so we’re re-tooling things but we're making progress every week. We have a game on Sunday at home, so we’ll get back to work and focus on that game.”
On the players you brought in defensively and the changes made with players out:
Coach Porter: “I think we have to take the positives and build on this. As much as we wanted to roll last year right into this year it’s not worked out that way. Over half the team was new, and we are making progress. We had a good result against San Jose, and for me this was a good result on the road. Although when you give up a late goal you feel like you dropped some points, but we still feel like it’s a good result and we feel like we’re starting to make progress with the new guys. It takes time for them to get comfortable.”
Portland Midfielder/Defender Jack Barmby
On scoring only few minutes going into the game:
Barmby: “Coming in as a sub, it’s hard to get the intensity straight away, but fortunately, the ball fell to D [Diego Chara], he chipped it over the defender’s head when I saw it. I didn’t get the cleanest contact but it was probably most effective. If I would have hit it cleanly I probably would have missed. It was good to see it go in.”
On scoring his first MLS goal:
Barmby: “I thinks it’s vital that it get it off as soon as you can […] get off the mark as soon as you can. Hopefully, many more to come.”
On playing in his third MLS game and his thoughts so far of the League:
Barmby: “I settled really nice with the lads. The whole group, the staff, the manager, have been working me in very good. It’s an experience for me. I’m still young. I’m 21. To score goals and create chances in one game, it’s nice to get off early, but yeah, I feel comfortable.”
On choosing the MLS being from England:
Barmby: “I always liked the option of [MLS]. As soon as Portland were interested I grabbed at the chance to come. I think the league is really good, they play in very good stadiums, especially Portland, it’s very professional.”
Portland Timbers Defender Zarek Valentin
On the tie:
Valentin: “Obviously, we wish we would have held on to the three points. It was only five minutes more. I think if you ask most teams around the league, would you take a point on the road after flying cross-country most teams, would do that. Again, personally, I’m not the happiest right now. Again, you have to keep it in perspective. It’s not an easy place to play in, obviously, playing on the turf. Their attacking group is very creative and can make things happen. You have to keep building on the positives. You have a quick turnaround, which is the best thing for us right now.”
On the playing surface of Gillette Stadium:
Valentin: “It is what it is. Most players prefer grass, but at the end of the day, we play on turf, too, so it’s not a huge change and both teams play on it. Obviously, the Revs might be a little more use to it, but again, I’m not one to make excuses. It’s the playing field and it’s even the traveling when things are tough, but at the end of the day, every team makes trips like that eventually. The Revs will have to play somebody on the West Coast. I’m not somebody who likes to make excuses. I’d rather look at the plays themselves and analyze those, instead of the field, the conditions, and travel.”
On getting a yellow card:
Valentin: “It was a mistimed tackle. I thought I could get there, and [New England midfielder Donnie] Smith got there a little bit before me. It was no malice, we both knew it. I was talking to [New England midfielder] Kelyn Rowe and those guys and asked if [Smith] was alright. He was completely fine. It was two players battling hard and that’s all it was. Again, I don’t like getting yellow cards, but again, he got there a half a second before me and I got a little bit of him and there was no malice, intent, nothing like that. Yellow cards happen. [New England midfielder] Lee Nguyen took one at the end of the game, could have saved their team a goal. That’s a professional foul. He’s a seasoned player. He knew what he was doing. If he doesn’t make that, we’re three-on-one against their back.”