What They’re Saying: #PHIvNE
- Updated: March 15, 2014
Photo credit: Kari Heistad/capturedimages.biz
With Saturday’s contest between the New England Revolution (0-1-0, 0 points) and Philadelphia Union (0-0-1, 1 point) only hours away, let’s take one last look at what the coaches and players were saying in the days leading up to it.
Revolution coach Jay Heaps
-On the Union’s offseason roster changes:
“They’re a different team, they played well together, I thought that they didn’t sit back, they went after Portland in their place and overall it was a complete game up until the last minute, I think they almost had three points and. Overall, their performance was very good, start to finish.”
-On the game plan:
“We need to play aggressive, we need to play our system, and we need to play our style.”
Union coach John Hackworth (via philadelphiaunion.com)
-On what he expects from Revolution on Saturday:
“I don’t think that’s reflective of the New England team we know. We know (Revolution manager) Jay Heaps very well. He has that team prepared and playing and they built that over the last several years. You look at that game and you break it down a little bit and it was an odd result. Playing in Houston is probably one of the most difficult places to play because of the size of the field. The way the stadium is, it throws you off your game in a lot of ways.”
-On whether he was surprised to the Revolution drop its opener 4-0 last week:
“It did (surprise me). But I think you have to give Houston a lot of credit for that. Will Bruin (took his) opportunities really well. They obviously had a couple of miscues on defense. Sometimes you don’t get punished for those and in this case they got punished early and often. But I thought they recovered well and had moments in that game where New England played really well and deserved to get a couple of goals back and it just didn’t happen for them. That means they’re going to be very motivated to come out. I’m sure they’re coming out feeling very motivated to prove that they’re not the team that we saw last week in Houston.”
Revolution midfielder Diego Fagundez
-On what he expects from the Union:
“They came from a tie away so they’re going to come home and try to get those three points at home and we’re going to have to go over there and take those three points away and bring them home with us.”
-On the challenges the Union pose to the Revolution:
“We have a good team, too, so it’s going to be a battle in the midfield and going forward it’s going to be who finishes their chances and if we get chances, we just need to finish them so we can finish the game early.”
Union midfielder Maurice Edu (via philadelphiaunion.com)
-On what the Union are expecting from the Revolution:
“We played them in preseason and they’re a solid team. In this league it’s funny, because on any given day, anyone can beat anyone. They’re coming off a tough defeat, so they’re definitely coming out with a point to prove. They want to show that they’re a good team. It’s about how you respond, and they’re going to try to put an impact on this game. It’s up to us to try to make our home stadium a fortress, to where teams come in here and they’re scared to play us, to make it a situation where teams hate coming here.”
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