New England Revolution Head Coach Jay Heaps
We’re excited that we were able to get the three points but also get some sharpness. Get out of there without any injuries, without any red cards. We wanted to be professionals tonight. I think we did that. It got a little bit chippy but we kept up our heads and were able to get the three points and get ready for the playoffs.

(The clean sheet) was part of what we really wanted to do. It’s important going into the playoffs not to concede home goals, we really wanted to sure that up. Our defense was really good. I think Bobby (Shuttleworth) had one or two good saves but no one was behind us and that was key number one, I thought that was good.

I think it was really that we wanted sharpness and we hadn’t played since Thursday of last week, so we were chomping at the bit a little bit. You’ve got to be mindful of keeping rhythm. Other than Teal (Bunbury) that we really wanted to rest, everyone else was really ready to go. It’s hard not to play when guys want to go. I think the thought process was, get to 60 (minutes) and make some decisions and that’s what we did.

I think there’s a good balance of a little bit more toughness than we had last year. Because last year we were resilient, I think we showed that when we had to go on the run to get into the playoffs. This year I think we have a little bit of toughness. When we added Jermaine (Jones) everyone around him and around Jose (Goncalves), we’ve just gotten a little bit stronger and a little bit stronger mentally.

I can speak for what (Lee Nguyen) brings to us. He’s just been really good. He’s finished all his chances, he hasn’t missed many. But it’s not just what he does inside the other teams 18, it’s the way he plays, the way he defends, the way he picks up second balls. You guys are watching, he’s collecting the ball at midfield and the second he gets it he’s creating space and options for everybody. He dictates a lot of the game and our break when we’re trying to get forward.

We want to be as deep as we can. I think last week we would have liked to get (Diego Fagundez) in that Thursday night game but (Andrew) Farrell got the injury. We were a little bit hands-tied with some of those subs. But Diego is someone we need. He’s a firepower for us, he’s elusive and he finds gaps. He’s a player that we want going forward. At any moment he can score a goal and he can score three goals. I think when you have to defend that teams have to be mindful of him and mark him. What I really liked tonight from Diego was his work. I thought he was excellent tonight in terms of how he worked back, how he pressured and I thought he was good enough to get that opportunity for Daigo (Kobayashi), maybe he shoots it or he creates it for Daigo, but the two of them did excellent in that second half.

Yeah we were (preparing for the playoffs). I think you want to go into the playoffs with a rhythm and I think having the long break from Thursday to Saturday guys were chomping at the bit to play. You want to go in confident and also I thought tonight was a good test because we only had the one goal and the last ten minutes we really made an effort to make sure we didn’t give up anything and I thought our defense did a great job.

No, we had a bad angle on it. But what we did see was it looked like (Dominic) Oduro flicked it on. So I like to say I know what I’m talking about when it comes to the refereeing, but I don’t. So I’ve got to see it on film. But from what I saw it looked like Oduro flicked it on which means from my interpretation, any ball directed back from another team intentionally is onside. I just liked that our guys kept playing. I think there were guys stopping and guys playing. I think there’s a lesson to be learned from that. We want our guys to finish up plays, we hate when guy put their arms up. You’ve got to finish on the whistle and we did and I’m proud of our guys for that.

I thought (Andy Dorman) looked good. It took him a little while to get the rhythm back. But Andy was a key part of our success early in the year and we just got to get him back to that rhythm. I think our midfielder is a strength right now. But you know how the playoffs work, any moment there can be an injury, any moment there can be a red card, yellow card accumulation so we love having a deep midfield.

New England Revolution midfielder Lee Nguyen
We wanted to be solid in the back and keep a clean sheet. Credit to the guys in the back line and Bobby (Shuttleworth), they all did a great job. At the same time, we wanted it to make it exciting for the fans, and get the three points. 

Chris (Tierney) did a great job getting to the line and finding me. Also, credit to Charlie (Davies) for being able to lay it off and letting it go through his legs. After that, I was just trying to find an opening. After taking a couple of touches, I was able to put it in cleanly.

I did not know what was going on before the goal. Although people were yelling offsides, I decided to keep playing because I did not hear a whistle. The defenders were still going, so I decided to finish it off and get a goal.

Scott (Caldwell) has been great all season. He plays the number 6 role very well, and it gives me and Jermaine (Jones) more freedom. Jermaine can cover a lot of ground; he is a world-class player. He can get the ball deep and still penetrate with a long pass. This gives us the opportunity to play a little higher and be able to make more forward runs. We’ve had great chemistry working together.

It’s flattering to be considered MVP. However, we’ve had the same mindset all season: to make playoffs. We knew all along we had the quality to do that, and it’s not just about getting to the playoffs. I think we have chance to go all the way. Now we have to focus on the next game.

Jay (Heaps) told me at halftime that he was going to give me 15 minutes, and I said I wanted 25. He wanted to give us a bit more minutes to stay sharp for playoffs.

The key before the game was to keep a clean sheet and be safe at home. This mentality will help us going into playoffs.

New England Revolution Goaltender Bobby Shuttleworth
Yeah, I think it’s been a while since we’d gotten [a shutout]. And it’s kind of perfect to get one going into the playoffs and that’s what we need to do at home.

There’re definitely things we could’ve done better. We’ll go over the tape and try to improve those things but, overall, we got the win at home. We get a shutout, so I think we’ll take that.

Yeah, like I said, you know it’s good to be able to come at home and be able to get our organization down and get our lines and keep the zero and get a win.

Yeah, I mean [tonight’s atmosphere] awesome. Our fans have been great all year. The crowd was big tonight and they were very loud and it’s great to see that at Gillette (Stadium) and like I said, they’ve been awesome all year.

I think the back line was awesome tonight. Everyone was very organized. The communication was great but, it wasn’t just the back line it was Scotty (Caldwell) and Jermaine (Jones) and everybody closing down up front. So, I think it was a collective team effort and that’s exactly what we’re going to need going forward.

I think as soon as the whistle ends everybody knows next week is a playoff game and how important that’s going to be. Last year, we’re going to take what we can from last year. But obviously, we want to advance past that round so going forward it’s all about focusing on us and getting our stuff right.

Yeah of course. Every time, every year you want to improve personally and as a team and you know it’s always our goal to make the playoffs. But, making the playoffs last year, now it’s time to improve and hopefully get into the next round.

You can’t say enough good things about A.J. (Soares). His communication, he’s been unreal for us the entire season and he deserves every accolade that he’s going to get this year.        

Toronto FC head coach Greg Vanney
We were playing really well in a game that doesn’t have a grand importance and we were controlling the game. That ends up to be the deciding goal but more importantly, it just kicked the emotion out of our group a little bit when we were playing well and doing all the things that I’d asked them to do. We went on to put out what I thought was a valiant effort but we just didn’t have the same sharpness after we gave up the goal. I can’t say anything other than I’ve seen U-12 referees make that call and that’s an embarrassment.

It is what it is. I’m gutted for our guys because like I said, I thought we were in pretty good control of the game. I think we were causing them a lot of problems. They were trying to figure us out. We lost some sharpness after that just because our emotions dropped a little bit but it is what it is. We move on and we go from there.

I thought we played well. I thought offensively and defensively we were in control of the game for sure for the first 35 minutes. Even in stretches after that, I thought we had some good moments. We’re starting to look better in terms of our understanding of our shape and positioning and possession and what we’re looking to do. We had a couple good chances; especially early on. We had a good chance late on. So there were some positive things to take out of it, but the guys are tired of taking little positives. They want a result. At the end of the day, they’re extremely frustrated that they put out a good effort and sometimes it’s for naught because things that are out of your control.

Toronto FC midfielder Michael Bradley
The goal in the first half really changed the complexion of the game. What did you see?
Frustrating for sure, but that’s the way the game goes sometimes. For us it’s about looking at the entire season as a whole and understanding that we need to continue to improve.  There’s still a lot to take from this season in terms of things to build on but we have to be honest with ourselves to know that when we come back in January it’s going to be time to get to work and we need to work and compete everyday continue to get better.

Like I said it’s not all negative and doom and gloom. There’s still a lot to look back on and be positive about, but at the same time you have to be honest and be able to look in the mirror and say certain things weren’t good enough. And we know that. And that’s the challenge and be ready from the first day of preseason and just work and work and make sure that no matter what happens at the end of next season we’re one of the last teams standing.

Sure, it’s no secret these are no body’s favorite games to play, obviously nothing to play for. But as a professional and as a competitor, it’s still part of the job sometimes. So every guy stepped on the field and went about it the best possible way. Like I said we’ll take a little bit of time now, everyone needs to recharge their batteries and then very quickly we’ll be looking forward to next season.

Toronto FC Defender Steven Caldwell
I felt we dominated most of the game actually. We did very well in the first half dominating the play, had Gilberto’s opportunist chance with the bar and a few opportunities, but controlled the tempo. Unfortunately, the goal was easy to see, you know he put his flag up. It’s just unacceptable really that that can happen in the end and the goal is allowed; it took the wind out of us…

We managed to come in 1-0 down and we were pretty angry and we regrouped and focused again, and obviously had to play a little bit more open in the second half, left us a little bit open to the counter attack and they had a few opportunities but overall, I felt we dominated the second half too.

It’s utterly disappointing because you expect them to do their job and the guy was clearly offside – the linesman put his flag up. I glanced over and stopped, everybody stopped. I don’t think their guy could believe it, I think he just put it in for the sake of it and obviously the goal was given, we couldn’t believe it and we ran over and were very angry and disappointed as anybody would be in that circumstance.

It took the wind out of us for a little while, we needed to get our shape back, and regroup a little bit – which we did. Halftime came at a good time for us and obviously we came out in the second half and dominated the ball, had a few good chances, Luke (Moore) had a good opportunity, Weides (Andrew Weideman) had a sort of half chance at the end… Overall, we dominated the play but we never created as many chances as we would have liked.

Well we know that they’re a team that we can beat, we just have to be more consistent with our play. We’ve shown that with a lot of teams this season, it’s just that we need to be more consistent that’s (how) the other teams that get in the playoffs. We’ve unfortunately at the wrong times went on poor runs – we’re going to have to improve on that next season. We’re well aware of what we’re capable of, we just have to be more consistent and more disciplined in our play and I’m sure next season we’ll be back raring and ready to go, and hopefully amount a serious challenge of getting in these playoffs.

Obviously everybody just needs to regroup and think about the season, individually and obviously collectively as a unit, and be prepared physically and mentally to come back next season to push on to be stronger. Obviously we’ve been short in the end but we have improved a lot and we’ve got to improve as much again if we want to get in these playoffs next season.