LA Galaxy 4, Sporting KC 2
Q. You guys are unbeaten at home and returning from the two-week break. You know how important it is to have your home be a fortress. Only three teams have not lost at home and you're one of them?
DIEGO FAGĂNDEZ: Like you said, we know this part is important for us. Home games is huge. I think if you win every home game and you go away, and you actually get, I want to say, even if you get five, maybe three or four wins away, you definitely make the playoffs. I think that's the key part. Making sure that when we come home, we make it hard for teams, and we are doing that.
We are scoring a lot of goals but at the same time we need to be better defensively so we are not giving up a lot. It would be nice to win a game 2-0 or 1-0 and not have to go back-and-forth with a team after one goal or two goals, you know.
But like I said, I keep saying it over and over, if this team plays 90 minutes, I don't think there's a team that's better than us. I'll keep phrasing that, and I'm very proud of this team. Like today, we showed how good we are; that we can score goals; that we can fight till the end, and today, everybody did a good job. We are all happy.
Q. What are your thoughts, when you don't have Riqui, how does it change things for you, and how does it change things in midfield and as you guys are looking to move the ball or set up to be at your best in the attack? What are the biggest challenges without him or biggest alterations you have to make?
We know how good Riqui is. At the end of the day, he's a big part of this team. He can make us play well. And I think that's important.
So when he's not here, I think we need to step up, and I think today, everybody stepped up. What did we have, four different goal scorers, I think? And so that was huge.
And again, it was nice to win today and we didn't have him, and everybody stepped up and that was huge. Now we go back on Wednesday and everybody needs to do it again. We don't know when he's going to be able to play or what. So hopefully he's back soon and we can -- and he can play. But at the same time, we have to -- everybody needs to be ready, myself, whoever is up next.
And like Vanney said, at the end of the day, we know what we want to do. We know what kind of players we have, and we are going to use everybody as much as we can. We need to adapt to the way we play.
Q. (Off mic).
At the end of the day, when Riqui plays, I think maybe the team plays a little different because the way he moves the ball, he comes and receives it deeper. So we have to make sure that we are filling up some gaps.
I think today, in my position, I wasn't really coming down low to receive the ball. I'd rather not. I'd rather stay up higher and have the defense be right on my back. So we have different kind of players, and that's what's fun about it all. At the end of the day, teams have to adapt, and maybe they know the way Riqui plays, and like I said, this guy is amazing. He's probably one of the best in the League, and I'm very happy to have him on the team. Because if he was playing against us, it's one of those things; you want to kick him. So it's nice that he's on our team.
Q. I think you mentioned it but you said it would be nice to win a game 1-0. You guys tried to put it on cruise control a couple times in this game and sporting Kansas City kept coming back. What is that next step in your mind to getting those 1-0, 2-0 wins?
To be honest, I think today would have been one of those days where we could have probably gone 2-0. I gave a bad ball away, and we got punished for it. It's frustrating because I think if we don't give them that momentum, I think the third one comes, and like you said, I think we go on cruise control and the game could end 2-0, 3-0 or even more.
But when you give a team a little bit of life, they fight and they fight till the end. I think that's our main thing. If we can punish someone, and then not give some sloppy balls away, like I said, I'm very frustrated about that. It's not like myself to do that, and like I said, if you give that to a team, they are going to take it any day, and they did today.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports