KANSAS CITY WIZARDS MANAGER PETER VERMES
On making the decision to start Diop up top
“When we found out Bunbury and Wolff were unavailable, we made the decision to put Diop up there right away. He has played up there previously in his career. We thought he could be a presence in this game, especially with the size that New England has. We thought they were going to make this a game about set pieces. It was important for us to have another big presence on the defensive side as well. What I was shocked about was that they went to a 3-5-2. I was not expecting that. I think it played to our favor, though.”
On the game
“This is good for a number of reasons. It puts us three points closer to a playoff spot. It also gets us back into the dance. We’re pushing the envelope a little bit. Like I said, performances are one thing, and results are another. We’ve had a lot of good performances as of late, if you look at our last six games. It’s all about us finishing our chances.
On creating enough chances to win games
“It’s not a question of whether we can create chances or not, it’s a question of whether or not we can finish chances. If we can score, we can take the pressure off of having to be clean on every single thing. I think you saw how after we scored a couple goals, we started possessing the ball a lot more and the game opened up. We started getting a lot more chances then.”
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS STRIKER KEI KAMARA
On Birahim Diop
“He smiles too much. He’s happy, he’s a happy guy. What he did today, for the team, it’s great. He came in, proved himself, and he did well.”
On the three goals that he and Diop combined to score
“I know when I play in the middle, I’m a big guy, I want people to give me the ball. And he is good in the air. So with the first one, he just made a perfect finish. With the second one, he got in the air, and had another good finish. With mine, I kind of rolled my knee, but I worked through it.”
On beating New England
“This is very big. They had, what, 21 points and we had 20 coming in? We’re just trying to push up into a playoff spot. That’s what we’re playing for. Winning a game like this, knowing we have an away game next week, it’s great for us.”
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS STRIKER RYAN SMITH
On the game and Birahim Diop
“We did what we know we can do. That’s the biggest compliment I can probably give our team tonight. We did what we should be doing. I’m not surprised with the way we played. Diop brings a great presence, a strong presence. I’m happy for him.”
NEW ENGLAND MANAGER STEVE NICOL
On his team’s performance "You can't chase the game away from home. If you go behind and you're chasing the game, what happens is that you leave holes. You can't fault the commitment from the players. They were fighting until the end, but when you make mistakes, you get punished. That's what happened.”
On how to respond to the road losses
“We need to get rested and get after it again. The only thing I can tell you is that we will have to do that. I'm confident of that – it'll never be in question. We just need to do things better moving forward when we have it and when we don't have it.”
NEW ENGLAND CAPTAIN SHALRIE JOSEPH
On the result “Defensively, we were solid the past couple of games and tonight we came in here and had a stinker. We just didn't perform well. We were awful and that's the bottom line about it.
On playing away from home
“To be one of the best teams in this league, you’ve got to win on the road and you’ve got to get points on the road. If you can't do that, you're not going to make the playoffs and you're not going to be one of those teams they are talking about. It's just not good enough.”
