New England Revolution head coach Steve Nicol

The first half, particularly, was certainly not our best as far as that was concerned. When you give the ball away, then you put yourself under pressure and we just encourage them. In the first half, without a shadow of a doubt, we just encouraged them by giving the ball away. Second half was better. The second goal was a great move – a great finish – and he was onside. But we’re looking to do more of that. But we won. We’re excited to win the game, we won the game. We think we deserved to win the game overall. And we move on.

[The second goal] was only because we made some decent passes and kept the ball, and forced them back. We hadn’t forced them back enough in the first half … if we didn’t give it away, we didn’t give each other a good pass, which made it difficult for us to get at them early, which meant they could get people behind the ball. I think the second half was a lot better, but we can still be better. 

If tripping yourself up and making a save counts then… But (Matt Reis) made the save. I think the most important save he made was right at the end, from (Omar) Salgado. It was a good volley from Salgado and Matt was absolutely in the perfect place. I think that was an important one. But I think that would have been harsh on us – I think we deserved to win the game. As I said, we won and we move on.

(Rajko Lekic’s injury) shouldn’t be too bad, just a tweak. It was a precaution more than anything else. So it shouldn’t be bad.

New England Revolution midfielder Benny Feilhaber

We’re playing at home and it’s always the three points that’s important. Obviously we got it in a scrappy way, but we got it. 

Give Vancouver credit. They’ve had a tough week, but they came in here and hustled, ran around a lot, made it difficult for us. I think they even had a little bit better of the game in parts of the first half, but I do think that as the game went on, we improved and started getting a little bit more dangerous plays closer to their goal and we were able to create the penalty, and a couple of other chances, as well. Sainey (Nyassi) got robbed and (Jay) Nolly made great save. He made a couple of other good saves. There was my play, from what I’ve heard is not offside – I don’t know if it was, you guys can tell me – so that should have been 2-0 right there, and that would have made the game easier. But we created not too many chances, but we took advantage of one today, and that was the difference. 

It was a long throw into the box. I was actually asking Darrius (Barnes) to play it in short to me and he threw it in long. But I followed it into the box and the guy headed it right to me. The ball kind of didn’t really sit up for me to shoot it that well. I don’t think I could’ve shot it, so I faked the shot and the guy bit on it and I took a touch and he stepped right on my ankle … if he doesn’t touch me, then I get a touch to the right side and probably shoot the ball then. Once he stepped on my foot I had nowhere to go but down. 

All around, we played a good defensive game in both games. Everyone’s been saying it’s our first two shutouts of the year and they came back-to-back, which I think is important. We got a little bit more stability back there. To be honest, I feel like we created more chances against Colorado, but it was about actually putting the ball in the back of the net today and I think we were able to do that. The one thing can say is that we were able to score and that’s what we improved on. 

New England Revolution midfielder Shalrie Joseph

Looking in the mirror in the second half, everybody started getting on each other – even the coaches a little bit – trying to tell us to pick the tempo up a little bit and to start pushing them back on their heels. We came out second half and we tried to do that and the goal came through my foot, but everybody worked really hard on that goal and was in the perfect. Benny’s just deceptive in the box and we got that call at home, finally, and I was able to put it away tonight. 

Just mental and concentration and everyone staying focused on the game and concentrating for 90 minutes. I think that’s where we’re lapsing, and that’s where we look sloppy throughout the game. We don’t concentrate enough and we don’t take of the ball, but we had some good possession a little bit tonight and we’re going to work on it coming up this week and try to be better in San Jose. But it’s all about inconsistency. That’s what’s killing us right now. We’re doing some good stuff here and there, and sometimes it doesn’t look like we know what we’re about. 

Me and Kevin and Matt yesterday and Thursday were messing around and trying to put it on the side netting. Me and  Matt was taking some yesterday and Kevin was telling me I couldn’t put it in the side netting. I took a couple so tonight when I went up, I knew what corner I was going – I had it picked out already in my mind – and I just wanted to put it there low and hard. 

The Back four including Matty, them boys were solid tonight and didn’t give up much. Darrius playing left back … you saw how good he was on his weaker foot. Chris playing on the left side was solid tonight. We can take a lot of positives from what we did defensively, but offensively, we just have to create more chances and bet better with the ball. But as I said, the back four, you have to tip your hat to them because they were outstanding for us not giving up a goal. And that’s what we need. 

Vancouver Whitecaps FC head coach Teitur Thordarson

I think we played very well. I think we had full control of the game and played extremely well. I’m obviously disappointed with the result, but at the same time, we dominated the game.  We didn’t create too many goal scoring opportunities, but we had some of them, especially in the first half. That was basically the same with them. They had a lot of dangerous corners and free kicks, and we knew that that’s what they’re good at. Unfortunately, they were given a penalty.

We knew what kind players (Benny Feilhaber and Rajko Lekic) were. We focused mostly on ourselves, and I think we played very well.

We didn’t prepare any differently. We are in the middle of a very tough schedule with games every third day. We’ve had that now for three weeks basically. We’ve played seven games in 22 days now. There hasn’t been much time for training, so it’s more recovery between the games.

(We) kept (our) heads up and continued to play, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to create too many goal chances. I think we kept good control of the game, but unfortunately they won it on a penalty.

I think the team is playing very well, and they have been doing that. Obviously, we are making some mistakes that we are very harshly punished for. We can’t continue to do that. That is something that has to change. That isn’t really a team problem; it’s more individual things that happen during the game. The penalty is the best example of that. There is bad ball control on the first touch and the penalty comes of that.

I expected a tough game, absolutely. I think the team performed fantastically with all of these younger players on board. What I was surprised about was that we basically dominated the game for the whole contest. That is something I was surprised about. We did it well, played well, and I’m very happy with the young guys.

We decided before that we would play (Jay DeMerit) 60-65 minutes today, and it was very nice to see him go through that. Not only did he (do well) individually, but he kept the backline well together and pushed the people in front of him also very well.

We had to (rest some usual starters) because we have several more games coming up, and it’s a very important game on Wednesday. Obviously we had to mix the lineup up a little bit. I’m extremely happy with the guys who played today

Vancouver Whitecaps FC forward Omar Salgado

(I’m) very disappointed. I thought we played very well. The penalty killed our momentum, and we just didn’t do our thing in the second half. We didn’t really get many chances in the game, and at the end (I’m) just very disappointed with the result. It’s a setback for us.

I thought we played a great game from all of us. It’s practically the second team, so we did very well in all of the areas of the game. It’s just to look forward now.

(Matt Reis) had a great save on one and the other hit the post. It was unlucky and great defending by them.

It’s a process, but I adapted to the league very well, and I just have to keep going. (Tonight) was the same as any other game, and you have to take it as any other game. You just have to give it your all and try and score.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC goalkeeper Jay Nolly

I think (Jay DeMerit’s return) was good. I think you can see his vocal presence out there. He’s been a leader in the locker room and now it’s better having him on the field.

I think we had a really good first half. We were energized. I felt like we were creating chances and doing really well. Up until the PK, it was a pretty even game.

We’ve been playing really well in the second halves, but this game we started really well and we felt like we were going to continue that in the second half. When you get a PK four minutes in, it was kind of tough for us to deal with. We still tried to create chances, finish the game and try to look for a tie at the end.

That’s out immediate goal right now, to win the Nutrilite (Canadian Championship). It’s two games, home and away. If we win that, that’ll be huge for our mentality, for the team going into the rest of the season.

We got some guys’ first appearances. We had a really young roster out there, but I don’t think you saw that. I think we put a lot of good effort in. We were playing well, and I think if they had gotten that PK and we had fallen off, that would have been a huge disappointment for us, but we kept pushing forward - just trying to scramble and find anything. Overall, we worked hard the whole 90 minutes and we had a good first half. We’ve been having good second halves. I think we put in a good 90 minutes, and it was tough to lose it.

I think that defensively as a team, we’re getting a lot stronger. That’s been a good change for us, but now we have to go the other way and start breaking through. We haven’t scored too many goals in the last few games. We need to do that to win some games, but we’ve been doing good things defensively. We just need to get forward better.