Toronto FC 2, LA Galaxy 2
BOB BRADLEY: We're all disappointed. A night where you find of fight through things, get behind on a free kick, pick it up, as the first half goes on, score two to take the lead and just scuffled a throw and he gets away from people too easily. We get a foot in on the ball. Happened a bunch of times tonight, we get a foot in but it's back to them and we don't step out fast enough.
Q. A goal like that -- how big was that on the score sheet?
BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, we're excited for him. He's a good guy. There's been a stretch where it has not gone as well as he would like or as well as any of us would like, and we talked before the game about Ayo, just empty the tank, just give us as much as you can, and then I said in front of everybody and at a certain point, Jesus, you come in and be ready to do the same.
Yeah, we were able -- Michael played a good ball to Achara, Achara cuts it back and Jesús found a good spot. So really important and happy for him.
Q. Interesting first half but seemed like in the second half -- what was it --
BOB BRADLEY: The game started slow. Tactically they tried to clamp down the middle like most teams, try not to let the ball get to Michael too often and so early on just the tempo of the game was slower than we would like. They still do a good job of how they spread out from the back.
If you don't do as good a job of stepping out as a group, and there's moments where they have a way of playing out, and it didn't add up to anything. But it meant that at times, the game was slow, and then somewhere after we went down, I thought we started to find better ways to step up as a group. Start to win some more balls in their half of the field, get forward a little bit quicker. Couldn't quite make a play but you could tell that that was still a step in the right direction.
Continued in the second half. Yeah, you know, trying to find ways to push the game. In parts of the game, the football still can be sharper and better. But when the intensity is high in games like this, it has to be a collective effort and I think we saw a good amount of that as the game went on.
Q. Was the fight your guys showed today the fight of a team that deserves to go to the playoffs?
BOB BRADLEY: Look, you have to be a team that has a strong mentality. You have to be a team that is resilient; that has football ideas. It's a package of all these things and that's how you become a good team. If you do that and you take enough points, then, you know, you go to the playoffs. You go to the playoffs and you're playing well, and you have a chance to keep going. So that's the way we've got to continue to go after every game.
Q. I think we talked before about the team learning to close out a win. Is tonight just another bump in that road?
BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, but when you say those things, every guy in there would say, yeah, we have to close out a win. But then it comes down to a moment, right. It comes down to a moment where off of a throw-in, we're a little bit tentative in terms of how we deal with it. Manages to get a foot in but it's right back to Pooch and as a team we are not ready to step quickly enough as he cuts inside and as I said he gets a good shot.
Yeah, there's -- the way you do it in each game is a little different. It's dealing with different moments in games. It's making plays and it's trying to play up the field and it's trying to get another goal. Tonight we didn't have a way to get the next goal. That never happened. There was at 2-1 not much happening. I thought we were doing a pretty slid job but as I said a few times now, it's just a loose play that comes off of a throw-in where we don't do a good enough job.
Q. How do you assess the progress of Lukas the last few weeks?
BOB BRADLEY: Overall I think the play from both of those guys, the understanding has been better. It's been a very good stretch for Chris, his best stretch of the year, so very pleased about that and I think Lucas has made a lot of progress this year.
Q. The season is obviously winding down, and looking at tonight as sort of two points left on the table, does that sort of waiver your team's belief that they can make a run at the playoffs?
BOB BRADLEY: Nobody thinks that. Nobody thinks that. It's not like you go in and say, you know, is our confidence wavering and everything. Nobody thinks like that. We go ready for the next game. Try to take three points on Sunday. You keep trying to have a team that has a strong mentality. Those are the kind of things that, yeah, those are questions that you get asked and those are the things that get written in social media but a group has to have a strong mentality. If you have a night where, you know, you think you have a chance for three points and you don't, then everybody comes in there angry, disappointed, frustrated.
Yes, the fact that we've had a number of games where we've given up late goals makes it sting a little bit more and then you at a certain point say, okay, come on, into tomorrow and we continue. In this last stretch of games, you see the football getting better, you see the mentality getting better. It's part of becoming a good team, and it's not just that it always falls into place so easily. It's tough nights. Sometimes it takes a season, and you know, but nobody has given up on this one and now we have to just see what three points can -- what does it take to get three points in a big match against Montréal and what would three points do for us as we go into the last part.
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