St. Louis 3, Sporting KC
JOHN HACKWORTH: Look, I think sometimes I sit up here, and I say things over and over again, but that group of guys in that locker room, they cope keep coming to work everything single day, and they don't just work hard. They work efficiently. They try to work really good as a team, and that -- when you work with a group of players like that, it's rewarding when you beat your archrival; you win your derby match. It's the momentum that I've been talking about for several weeks now.
We all know and we believe that we are a much better team than our record demonstrates, and we just want to make sure that tonight, in particular, we sent those 22,500 people away as happy as they could be, and I want to thank them because they were amazing. At the start of the game, the noise and the enthusiasm was amazing.
So big night for our club, our city, our fans. Turn it over to you guys.
Q. On a night you guys get officially eliminated from the playoffs, but when you look at how this team played tonight, how confident, optimistic are you about this team's future?
JOHN HACKWORTH: I've been saying it for a long time, right. Long time meaning probably five, six weeks, that this group has the ability to be a really good team, and then regardless of what happened to end this year, I was very confident that we would be a good team next year. Those guys are working towards that, and they are putting it on display against our main rival.
So really confident that we are going to be a good team next year.
Q. You've got to like what you see, but Teuchert when he's not only scoring goals, but setting up goals.
JOHN HACKWORTH: Yeah, Cedi was really good tonight. His first goal was fantastic. It was a little bit of a chess match there in that first half. So something had to give and thank goodness Cedi is on our team. Really good overall performance.
Q. Speaking of Cedi, just how close was he to not playing tonight?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Really close. Like really close. But he's tough. He's passionate. He is a really exceptional teammate.
You know, when we came in at halftime, I just said, "Are you feeling okay?"
He's like, "You know."
I'm like, "Well, you can ask me to come off the field but you're not coming off. So you're going back out there."
And for him, he's like, "Okay. No problem. Going back out." Even though he was probably in a significant amount of pain.
Q. Playing him --
JOHN HACKWORTH: Just between me and him when he tells me he's going to be ready, I have to trust him and he has to trust me, and you know, in this case, communicated well and thank goodness we had him on the field couldn't.
Q. On the same lines, of what Cedric was able to do tonight, what was it like seeing those players play so fluidly together, rotating to the right ask to the left and having those nice little passing plays that you've been working on since you took over?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Yeah, I keep telling you, I like this fluidity and mobility. I like the interchanging of positions, and I really think that's something that these guys enjoy doing, too, and you can kind of tell when we get going in a good way, they are having fun.
And when you're playing at this level and you still enjoy it at the level they are doing it, I think we see some positive performances coming out.
And when we do that, and a key play, like a little combination between those guys, gives us a little bit more confidence that we can go and get the next opportunity to penetrate and go find the next goal.
Q. How important was Rasmus on the right side for you tonight? He kind of gave it his all tonight, put the stick in there and really making it back.
JOHN HACKWORTH: He always puts in a good shift. Happy for him that he gets a goal. We knew that on the right side we were going to be more vertical and on the left side we were going to play a lot more and try to build up the rhythm. It was nice that both those work. He was open a lot in the first half. When we didn't find him, he made a lot of runs where he didn't get the ball but he didn't stop.
Q. Speaking of that fluidity, how much of a weapon is it to have a striker who doesn't need to take a shot to impact the game as much as Klauss did tonight?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Yeah, Klauss was good, wasn't he? It was nice.
Q. Does it help with that fluidity?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Of course. Of course. And you see, when I'm talking about like the joy of playing, like you could see Klauss having fun tonight. You could see him combining.
Of course, he likes to bang a little bit but at the same time it was just fun. I know I was probably yelling at the assistants going, "Clip that out!" "Clip that out!" "Clip that out!"
Now I have a lot of clips to choose from to show that fluidity and that mobility that we had. It was nice.
Q. Talking about the chess match early, it seemed like right before Cedi's goal, things kind of opened up and you went from having to play everything out of the back to finally getting some connection. Was that just getting the the short stuff going on the left, or what did open up the game so much for you guys?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Two things. I thought we got the game going on the left, and specifically, we played forward in times where previously earlier in the game we were playing backwards.
So we were playing kind of safe, if you will, being conservative. And that's not who we are, really. We want to -- we talk about just having the ability but also the decision-making to play between lines. In our club, we call it the zwischen den drom (ph). We do it pretty well.
Q. Most importantly, what are your bicycle buddies going to think about tonight?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Cool Beans Cycling is, No. 1, they are probably all drunk, and number two, they are having a lot of fun, and they can't give me any more sh-t. So I'm really happy about that.
Q. Rasmus looks next-level happy after the goal. Did you sense it was a big thing for him to get that?
JOHN HACKWORTH: I do. I've talked about it before. He's an amazing person. He's an amazing professional. He works so tirelessly for everybody else. To see him get that reward, just it makes everybody smile.
Q. And given the intensity of the rivalry with sporting Kansas City, how did your preparation for this match differ compared to other games in the season? Were there other tactical adjustments to counter Kansas City's style of play?
JOHN HACKWORTH: Sure. That's a mouthful of a question, by the way. There's a lot; I could probably write a couple chapters on it.
Our preparation, and one of the reasons why I said earlier that I really like coaching this group of men is because they come to work and they are like, okay, what are we going to do.
And then when I challenge them, they go for it. So our preparation for many weeks now has been that we're trying to get better every single day, and the competition in training is great. That means players are pushing each other.
When I am throwing tactical ideas at them, like here is what we are going to do on the left side, and here is what we are going to do on the right side, and they are two completely different things, they don't blink an eye. They are like, okay, let's follow the game plan. Starts with that guy at the back, Cedi, having a really good performance.
But mentality is what I'm really talking about, and that's what makes it so fun for a coach to work with players like that.
Q. Defensively, I bet you would have loved to have a clean sheet?
JOHN HACKWORTH: I mean, Roman deserved a clean sheet. We all did. It's a mistake that we keep making when we get overloaded on one side, and it's correctible. We did a much better job -- Afrifa, I think his name is, Stephen. I told him after the game, "That's a wonderful goal." At the same time you have to give an attacking player like him credit.
I know a little bit about him, and apparently he's been scoring goals for a long time. You know, kudos to him.
Q. Talk about, last week you won your first road game. Tonight first time you've won two games in a low row, another one of those...
JOHN HACKWORTH: What are you talking about? I've won a lot of two games in a row.
I'm just kidding. It's a winning streak, and we're happy to have one finally. FastScripts by ASAP Sports ...
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports