Houston Dynamo head coach Owen Coyle

(on the result of the game)“I thought that it was an electric start to the season in respect to the quality of both teams. It is tough since we didn’t win the match. I think we put so much into it, to come back from an early goal and to be fair to the lads, there was a lot of transfers. I’ve been involved with a lot of clubs and we were ready to approach the season we picked ourselves up with chance after chance in the first half. We hit with an equalizer and then should have been in front. Having said that, we come out score a very good goal to go up front. Then I felt (MF) Giles (Barnes) was fouled as he goes out to eventually get an equalizer. (GK Joe) Willis makes a good save in the counterattack and the boy puts it in the corner. We then pick ourselves up again and score a great equalizer, a great move and Giles is on the end of it. At that point, (MF) Ricardo Clark, who hasn’t trained all week came out of the game, (D) DaMarcus Beasley came out with an injury, in the last 10 minutes (MF) Alex Lima has an injury. So, effectively we were playing with less than 10 men. Alex Lima could barely get out with a jog. It is frustrating to lose a goal with five seconds of the added time. Again, what the players put in is fantastic. Credit to themselves it was some fantastic play. I know that moving forward it will do them well. Against a team that in the playoffs last year, lost the final to the LA Galaxy, I think that for long periods today we were definitely the team in the ascendency. So there is a lot to be pleased about. Obviously, the main concern now is one or two knocks that come from it, which happens in the game. Hopefully those injuries will be okay. In terms of their effort or quality that the players put in, I was absolutely delighted with that. ”

(on what needs to change against FC Dallas) “I think we know who we play with all of the fixtures. There’s no doubt, you’re right, we were in the lead 3-2 against a very good side. If you see it back when it’s cleared, the defensive crosses like they had nothing to lose. They just kept pushing on for that equalizer. When it was cleared (MF) Alex Lima was the closest one to the lad and he just can’t get it to stop the cross. Having said that, you’re right I think when it comes late on we have to stand on and make sure we are getting our heads on those crosses to make sure that the three points do not become one. It is a very relevant point and you’re right. There is stuff to be learned. I think there is a lot to be pleased about, huge positives but equally one or two things that we can address.”

(on the injury to MF Alex Lima) “He’s out taking a massage for a kick to the back of the leg. As did (D) DaMarcus (Beasley), if you remember in the first half, DaMarcus was caught a couple of times and he played on. The longer it went it tightened. I thought Alex Lima was unbelievable today. The performance that man gave was wonderful. He was one of the best players in the preseason. We certainly hope that both lads are available for a tough game against Dallas. There was a lot to be pleased about today, the toughest part was the lost standard when you put so much into the game against a very good side.”

(on the performance of MF Cristian Maidana and MF Andrew Wenger) “Again, I was delighted with them as you know myself and (Dynamo general manager) Matt Jordan worked very hard in the offseason to try to bring them to the club. I think you see today what ‘Chaco’ Maidana can do. Reluctantly I had to take Maidana out of the game, he missed two and a half weeks of the preseason. It’s not fair but that’s what we get, 70 minutes from him and (MF) Ricardo Clark was the same. They prepared to go in and it shows the spirit we have in the club and the camaraderie. Maidana as you see, even when he’s not in form the delivery from set plays, which affects how we could of scored as well, it is a wonderful thing. Wenger gives you pace and power on the wide areas. When you see (MF) Giles (Barnes) on the other side, we will be a very exciting team. What we have to do and it relates to the gentleman’s first question, we have to make sure that when it comes late on we are not giving up those chances whether we have players with fatigue or injury. We see the game now, if we did that, we would be sitting here applauding the performance and three points.”

(on the atmosphere and the fan interaction throughout the game)  “There’s no doubt and I’ve said this before, the stadium could fit in any of the leagues of global soccer including the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Bundesliga. When the fans are out there in that form, the atmosphere and how vocal they are certainly drives the players on. That’s the frustration we have of not giving them the three points, I don’t think it was due to a lack of effort or the quality that went about it. We scored three goals, it could have been six or seven today. That all goes well. ”

Houston Dynamo F Giles Barnes

(on his goal)“Yeah, the boys got onside I got a little caught back and I shouted at Boni (MF Boniek Garcia) and I just had to hit the target. It was great team play. I want to touch on what (Dynamo head coach) Owen said as well. I thought the boys were fantastic today. I thought that everyone gave their all. We had players that didn’t go all week go throughout the course of the game and those who came in did well. Big credit goes out to (MF) Alex Lima who literally could not lift for the last 10-15 minutes. It shows the kind of heart he has. We feel that we’ve got two points dropped but know that it’s a good start. We are looking forward to getting out there next week.”

(on the atmosphere and the fan interaction throughout the game) “Yeah, I mentioned it after the fans are incredible. They will come out and be the 12th man from minute one to minute 95. They also stayed after to thank us so we thought that it was good for us to go out and show our appreciation as well. Obviously, it was the opener of the season but they are here week in and week out through thick and thin. So I would like to say thank you to them again.”

Houston Dynamo MF Cristian Maidana

(on scoring his first goal with the Dynamo)“ I’m happy that I scored. Personally, I think I had a good game. I think that I still need to do more for the club. I’m sad that we didn’t pick up the three points. We needed to hang on just a little more at the end but that’s soccer. We lost our focus and then came their goal. It’s okay, the team played well, we had opportunities to score and I think we should of won but that’s soccer. We now have to think about the next game.”

(on the match versus FC Dallas)“We will take direction from (Dynamo head coach) Owen (Coyle), they will guide us and we know how important that game is. It is a local derby and they are a good team with very good players. They had brought on some good players and to be honest all of the games are tough. We have to remain focused throughout the whole game and avoid what happened today.”

(on the atmosphere created by the fans)“I felt food to see the fans out there today, from the first second I hit the field. It gave me goosebumps, this is a great fan base and I hope to see them throughout the year.”

Houston Dynamo F Will Bruin

(on the tie with New England)“It’s lost points right now that could affect us at the end of the year but you know right now we just have to move forward.”

(on his assist to MF Giles Barnes for the third Dynamo goal) “Boni (MF Boniek Garcia) had a great dummy, he even got me. I brought the ball in, didn’t have an opportunity to shoot it on frame, I was kind of out wide towards the edge of the 18-yard box. I saw Boni and Giles behind him and I knew that if I put enough pace on it that they could hit it first time that something would happen, and Giles had a great finish.”

(on his role in the team)“I don’t want to take any credit but if I don’t bring that ball in and hold it is a dead play, as a number nine or a striker you have to keep it simple and keep possession, and it leads to things like that.”

(on the fans and the support today) “Yeah today was great aside from the last minute goal from them, it was a good opening night the crowd was awesome, should have been three points but it wasn’t but that’s just one of 34.”

(on what changes he expects moving forward) “Yeah I mean that was our first game playing full on as the top five in the attack, we’re only going to get better and (build) more chemistry as the season goes on, I think three goals is a pretty good start but we need to sure up on the other end as well and that’s all 11 of us.”  

Houston Dynamo D DaMarcus Beasley

(on the match)“I thought we played well. Obviously, it’s tough to lose at the last second but that’s football. You can never predict what’s going to happen. Both teams came out to play. Both teams tried to win the game. I think it was fun for the fans. Obviously this is the first game of the season so there’s a lot of things we can work on, but we can take a lot of positives out of today.”

(on how he feels physically after the match) “I’m kind of beat up a little bit but I’m alright. I’m old, but I’m fine. (New England F Teal) Bunbury got me in the first half and it just kept getting worse and worse, so I felt the sprinting I had to do is a little bit too much, but I’ll be fine. “

(on MF Christian Maidana and MF Andrew Wenger) “They came into the group with smiles and they came to play. They have the same goal that we have for the Houston Dynamo and that’s to win. Obviously we take one game at a time. For them coming in and doing such a good job today, it shows the passion and that they fit very well into the Dynamo way. Chaco (Maidana) plays well as our number 10, moving over to the right, the left, in the middle. It’s hard to mark him. He came up in a lot of spots. And obviously Wenger with his goal, he’s a great right mid. He’s strong, he’s fast, he’s good in the air. He did well today. Both did well today. Like I said, it’s only the first game of the season so we’re going to see a lot more of them and they’re going to get better and better.”

(on the end of the match) “It’s the first game of the season. Obviously there’s going to be a couple bumps in the road. If this happened in game 30, we might have some problems. But it’s the first game and for the first game, I thought we did well. Especially in the first half, we controlled the game. Our passing, our movement was very good. I thought that says a lot for Chaco and Andrew because they kept the ball for us and they did well up top. It’s going to get better. It’s tough to (give up) a goal at the last second but it’s something we can work on. Something we’ll look at tomorrow, something we can look at the tape and see what we can do better.”

(on the atmosphere in the stadium)“Since I’ve been here, it’s always been like that. I really enjoy playing here and playing in front of our 12th man, because that’s what they are. They keep us going, they boo the refs when we need them to and that’s what it’s about.  That helps us. Maybe that helps the ref get on our side a little bit. Our fans are great. I love playing in front of them. Hopefully we have the same outcome on Saturday.”

(on what happened on New England’s first goal) “We cleared it out and the man hit a great shot from 25 yards out. You can’t really say too much about that. It happens all around the world. You can’t really defend it. If you’re going to nitpick, the clearance could maybe go out a little further but he hit a world class strike. I don’t fault anybody. It was a great goal.”

New England Revolution head coach Jay Heaps

(on his initial thoughts on the game) “That’s not how you draw it up. Back and forth game. I thought both teams had some really stuff, but unfortunately I didn’t think we were at our best. And at times I thought Houston did a good job punishing us, but in the end I liked our belief and we fought until the last whistle and were able to get a point.”

(on the first goal New England scored) “Great goal. We were fortunate but (MF) Diego (Fagundez) read it well. Two other players went up for one and I thought Diego did a nice job of reading the play and getting a good second ball. Diego can get balls, he’s a guy that can put it in from distance. Overall I thought Diego had a quiet night on pitch but really had a great stat line, one goal and two assists, but we want more from him. And as he gets into the season we’re going to see more of him. But for us to start out with a point on the road in a difficult environment, we’re not thrilled but we’re happy we were able to get the point.”

(on New England not being able to put its stamp on the game) “I was really disappointed with our first half overall. We started well the first 15 minutes, it was very good. But then when the game settled down, we never played. It took us into the second half after they scored the goal to go up and we finally played. Then when it was 2-2, I felt like both teams were pushing for it, at that point we wanted to go to at least get the win and they got us on a counter attack. It was a poor give-away on our end. Credit (Houston MF) Giles Barnes, that was a great goal. Great set-up from (Houston FW) Will (Bruin) to open the thing up. Two passes, three passes and they slush right through us, and that’s not good enough from us. We can’t have an advance position turnover lead to a goal. We rallied our guys, made some subs and I thought our subs really made an impact on the game which is important.  (MF) Scott Caldwell first came in for (MF) Kelyn Rowe. Then I thought (FW) Juan (Agudelo) came in and added a little bit of a lift and of course (MF) Daigo (Kobayashi). We don’t put him in for head balls but he got one.”

(on facing a new Dynamo roster) “They’re playing much different, and that’s credit to (Houston head coach) Owen (Coyle). Both teams got a look at each other under the hood during preseason. We saw them for two weeks, they saw us for two weeks. We felt like we had a good idea. They pressure a little bit more, you can tell that they’re a little more dynamic going forward. I think (Houston MF Christian) Maidana shows he can find those gaps. I thought (Houston FW) Will Bruin is reading the game well and (Houston MF) Giles Barnes all do a nice job of being good in that attack. We thought we were prepared to stop them, but unfortunately that one ball, the goal right before the half was a dagger. If we can get into halftime we can at least correct some things, but that one hurt.”

(on what went into the sub for Kelyn Rowe at the half) “Kelyn took a little bit of knock. I think he was battling in the middle. Credit (Houston MF) Ricardo Clark and I thought (Houston MF) Alex had a good game in there. Those guys were playing with some muscle and Kelyn got bumped and banged I think to be smart we took him out.”

(on rescuing points late in the match) “We didn’t give up a ton of late goals, but we gave up a lot of leads. We scored first in 24 games last year, something that I really lost a lot of sleep over. So again, we scored early and you felt that the game could go that way. We haven’t talked about it as a group. One thing that (MF) Diego (Fagundez) keeps bringing up is the fight that our guys have. I really like the group we have in terms of guys really rolling up the sleeve. We’ve added some real grit to our group with (MF) Je-Vaughn Watson and (MF) Gershon Koffie, and it allows guys like Diego and (MF) Scottie (Caldwell) and (MF) Lee (Nguyen) to go in and change the game. And that’s kind of what happened on the last play. We were able to fight until the end, the last minute of the game, and Diego and (MF) Daigo (Kobayashi) worked a little bit of magic.”

New England Revolution MF Diego Fagundez

(on how his goal transpired) “From the first start we said we wanted to have high pressure. (D) Jose (Goncalves) gave a long ball, once the ball was in the air I was trying to get the second ball. Part of the game plan. Once I saw the ball and took a touch, the first thing I thought was to take a shot. Took a shot and saw the ball going in and it felt good, because it one on those things that you work so hard every day in training to try and score these goals. When you get a chance and you actually finish it, it’s great.”

(on the team’s mentality coming into the second half) “At that point we still hadn’t played our game. He (New England head coach Jay Heaps) said we need to start playing our own game. I think in the second half we actually started playing. You can see the ball was moving left and right, we were finding our midfielders, and that’s the way we were attacking. We got the second goal that way. We fought until the end and that’s one thing we said, we need to fight. For fighting that long, we actually got what wanted and that’s to leave here with points.”

(on what the team can take from this match) “We take a lot. That we fought until the end and that’s something special because we know that we’re a better team than we were the first half. Maybe we just need to work on a couple things but that’s just the start. It’s the first game. We have to look forward to our home opener and that’s the most important thing right now.”