LA Galaxy 1, Real Salt Lake 0
Q. If you go down the roster, I'm sure you can point out guys who had really good nights all throughout from top to bottom. You got some good play from Tucker making his MLS debut and others. You were able to rotate and still put in a pretty good performance. How do you look at this game and the week?
GREG VANNEY: I mean, we knew the third game in a week in RSL at altitude was always going to be a challenge, just a physical challenge. Yes, we had to rotate some guys for varying reasons. The guys that stepped up stepped in and did what they needed to do. You know, Tucker did the job on the defensive side. He did the work that he needed to do to help us in possession. Just keep us solid. He helped keep us solid for the 45 minutes that he was out there and shortened the game for Marc to come in and help us for the next 45.
Yeah, and other guys just continued to step up. It's been a really big week for the group. It's just it's the first time, I know it's been out there, the first time we have won three in a row since I've been here. So that's something we wanted to accomplish this week, actually moving up the table, and now we are tide for first in the west, something we wanted to accomplish this week.
So just really proud of these guys because this is not an easy place to come, and they gritted it out and did the job and did the work they had to do.
Q. Looking at Gabriel Pec getting the goal and the performances he's had, building into a really solid player, now 13 goals contributions for him on the season. You've talked about him having a higher ceiling. Are we seeing him getting more comfortable and people getting comfortable around him? Where do you see him at right now?
I think it's a little bit of all of the above. Finding ways for him to get involved was one of the first things we were trying to do with him when he first got here. At times when he first got here, he was hanging out wide waiting for the game to come to him.
We're working with him on when to find interior positions maybe to get on the ball a little bit more, and obviously times when he can get on it wide, he already is there. We've used him on the right and left, just looking at getting different looks and giving different looks to the opposition as well.
So one of the keys is I think he's just really been involved and the more touches we get, then the better it is for him; the more he's happy, you know. With these guys, they want to touch the ball.
I think just his developing relationship with the guys on either side is starting to come around as well. So we know the quality he has. His ability on the right side to get in on his left foot, and he's had a couple finishes in the last few games on that. And when he's on left, he gets to the end line and he creates problems setting up goals which he did earlier in the week.
Again, he's finding his ways in this league and in this team, and we are finding ways to continue to get him on the ball in good positions. The guy is a tireless worker. He's a horse. It's like I think he's played 50 games in each of the last three seasons. So coming here and playing the games that we have and the busy schedule moments, for him, it's nothing. He lines up and goes and goes and goes. It's nice to have a player with that kind of durability and can perform and compete day-in and day-out, something he's just grown up to and is accustomed to. It's been great. It helps us and it helps him.
Q. I wanted to ask about the control, this is a really good team that you just muzzled and it seems like you have been able to do that the last couple games, where before things felt more run-and-gun. What do you think has gone into that?
Something that we really stressed over the course of, right when we hid the midseason, we happened to have a two-week break and one of the things we stressed inside of that is some of our defensive work, our positioning, our connectedness, making things a little clearer and more predictable for each other. I think we were really good at that in the last couple of games.
Today, we had to tougher a little bit at times but we still did the job of making the game as predictable at possible and helping each other out and doing the work that we needed to do.
I don't think it was always as crystal clear as we wanted it to be but guys did what they needed to do and we stayed compact and we read plays and we helped each other out. I thought it was really good.
Today, again, what people probably don't really understand when you play at altitude and you're already a little fatigued, the brain and the feet don't necessarily talk to each other very well, you know, and so I felt like some of our decisions over the course of the games were a little bit of a lack of oxygen in the brain and we could have maybe held possession. Because the the goal we scored was actually off a little bit of a string of possession where they had to work defensively, we separated them and then the opportunity really showed itself, and then we buried it.
Whereas there are times throughout the game where I felt like we rushed things a little bit and/or we kind of played down one side and we weren't as patient and forcing them to have to defend. It was their third game in this week and having been on the road for the first two, they were going to fatigue as well.
I thought in the second half we did a better job in stretches of finding some of those possession moments and being able to control the game that way and not just defensively.
But we definitely put in the defensive work tonight and helped to get another shutout. That's two in a row. That's not something we have done in probably a long time. It's a big thing for our group, as well. If we defend well, we're going to be really, really difficult to beat.
Q. Any wrinkles to when Riqui comes back to plugging him back in?
I don't think there's any wrinkles. I think it's pretty clear for everybody what we're trying to do, and you know, Riqui makes us a better team. He's got qualities that very few, if anyone else in this league has. You know, our goal is to try to find Riqui in positions that he can really turn the game, and we want to be structurally a little sound. It's something that we talked about coming out of the first half of the season of here are the moments when we are really good and here are the moments when we want to be better.
No team wants to be overly dependent on one player. So we have to make sure that the game continues to spread around. But his qualities are unmatched in many ways across our league.
So I look forward to getting him back in because I think the group is in a nice rhythm and has found again the things that we had at points in the first half of the season, and now I believe he has the ability to take us to another level when he gets reintegrated back in the group.
So I'm looking forward to him getting healthy. He'll be ready by next week to be involved. So he's ready to get on the field and start going. So we look forward to that.
Q. Can we just get your thoughts on Edwin Cerrillo's performance this season, just how he's filled in for Gastón throughout the whole season?
Yeah, I thought with Edwin at the start of the season, when Gastón was injured, he went through preseason. He was really strong. He had the first three to four games, I thought he was really strong. We worked on integrating Gastón because we knew there was going to need to be over the course of the season some rotation in our midfield and we wanted to keep all of those guys going.
I think when we started to rotate, I think he lost a little bit of his rhythm, and now that he's playing against consistently, I think he's found it back again, his defensive reading, the speed at which he covers, his interceptions and breaking up plays is important for us.
And he's a guy that never complicates the game. He's always wants game moving pretty fast, which also helps the team to find a rhythm inside of there. So I think in his moments, especially when he's had a run of games, he's been really good. I think when it was a little stop and start, I feel like he lost a little bit of his rhythm, and now we're back and flowing again. It's been nice.
It's important. He's had to run all three of these games and really dig down and do the work and he did it this week and it was fantastic. It was a huge effort for him to be in the middle of the the midfield for three games like this is not easy.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports