Orlando City 3, Toronto FC 2
Q. I'm sure that's the kind of game that gives coaches nightmares. Horrible start, good fight back, and then a horrible ending. Why are these goals being conceded, do you think? Giveaways? Defensive blunders? Why does that keep happening?
CHRIS ARMAS: Look, I saw my team fight tonight and we dig ourselves holes. I don't really want to talk about why those happened, because yeah, they are happening. I think you ask the question, but I think you can see, you know, what happened. But I saw my team fight.
And like I told them, I'll figure this out. I'm going to figure this out because we have the pieces. We have enough. We have enough. Not being fooled here in saying that. Our guys dig ourselves a hole. We fight back. We push the game. We create chances. We hit the post. It's there. There's more than enough there. So we've got to figure that out and I will figure this out. Because the solution's there.
Q. Pozuelo's performance tonight was fairly inspired, to say the least. Does that show how much you missed him earlier this season?
CHRIS ARMAS: Yeah, you're right. You see he drives the team and he gives us such creativity and ideas and confidence past midfield, right. Relieves pressures. Sees final plays. He makes everyone around him better. It was a gutsy performance from him because physically he's getting himself going for 90 minutes, and here he did it in heat and humidity like a winner.
So we will build on that and we will work around that and him because he drives it.
Q. I wanted to know the rationale behind starting Westberg ahead of Bono. What went into making that decision?
CHRIS ARMAS: Well, we've said all along, we have two No. 1 goalkeepers. Coming into the year, maybe it was Quentin's to lose. He's had two really good seasons coming off a year last year where the team has -- they are right there in the end. So circumstance, COVID, for him, his family, I think we've gone over this, and then there's a three-week break, and yeah, the team was 1-4-2, right.
So as the head coach, you look for little ways, little ways to whether it's changed the chemistry a little bit, spark the team, give them something different in the back. I will say, Quentin, he's a top goalkeeper and I think you all know that. He's going to get a good rhythm. He's going to get himself going here.
Q. Was the game plan for that match to look so open and so intense or how did it play out that way?
CHRIS ARMAS: Someone told us, expected goals, 3-1, we out-shot them, I don't know.
I know this: At halftime we talked about being tighter. But you understand in these conditions, it's not easy. There's fatigue and it challenges all the habits and your defensive structure, and the way that they play. They stretch you. They play with width. They overload central areas, so that stresses our team.
But no, our plan is never to be wide open. I think we defensively won a lot of balls in the middle of the field and created lots of little chances and opportunities, even at the end. Shaffelburg's in and overlapping Kemar, we have Dom Dwyer get a chance. We hit the post. For as long as I coach, I'm never going to coach a team with a plan to be wide open defensively. We gave away some goals today, and that's not the plan, either.
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