Montréal 3, Toronto FC 2
Q. We've seen the good and bad on display what was your take on the performance?
TERRY DUNFIELD: Yeah, that's what I shared with the team afterwards. If we are able to cut out some of the errors, there was some really nice football at times, and I think after halftime when we reorganized, the team showed the resiliency in the second half which was nice and I felt like we got a goal we deserved, a nice goal and unfortunately it's a tough turnover, an error, and I think Raoul tries to make a play he doesn't need to make, Thomas is in a good spot to make the save. It would have been an exciting 20 minutes. I'm gutted for our fans that we were not able to chase it with 11 men but I don't think it deterred us. We kept going and it would have been nice if we had another five minutes, even with ten men.
Q. What did you see from Prince?
I felt for Prince. I think at times he was a little bit isolated. There were moments we could have played into Prince. We didn't play into Prince with enough quality. So I think today is a tough game to judge him on.
Q. You mentioned before -- what specific --
Yeah, I thought we started well. We started on the front foot. We got them into areas where we wanted to press them. The first goal, I don't think it's a foul on Franco, it's a direct free kick that goes behind our back line. We still have five players, once we recover versus their two to manage that situation. We allow their center forward to come inside. It's a nice strike. We need to keep him wide there.
Then on the second goal, it's a tough goal kick. They react quicker and it's a play that our guys know that they can do better and at 2-0 down, I thought -- we went to a back five to get to halftime, and again, not to repeat myself but in the second half we came out on the front foot and.
It was nice to have Michael back. I thought Alonso come came on; he was impactful. Nice seeing Victor for the last ten minutes, and of course Prince's debut.
Q. Was that always the plan for Alonso, 45?
Yeah, that was the plan, just focus on 45. Alonso knew he would be coming in at halftime. I thought Alonso was excellent in the staff.
Q. Some substitutions at halftime. What was your message to the team after the first 45?
I think at halftime, we had a choice. We could have said, you know what, let's stop the bleeding and continue with the back five, or tremendous in our work over the last three weeks and come back out on the front foot.
So we went back to the structure that we started the game with, and it worked well. I thought Kobe came on, gave us a little bit of a lift. Brandon had an isolation chip in midfield with Alonso which allowed him to step out and press. Yeah, I was happy with the response after halftime.
Q. So much talk -- he said he wants to be here and he wants to be part of the solution. Moral victories are not important but how important is that to see a buy in from a guy that is expected to be one of the leaders on the team?
Yeah, I think during transfer windows, there's always going to be speculation around your top players. That's been the case with Bernardeschi, and there's been a lot of talk, but I think actions speak louder than words, and not only they scored two very nice goals, I thought he worked his ass off. He stepped out in press. He repressed at times, and I thought he was excellent tonight, so happy to hear that.
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