Timbers 4, Galaxy 2
Q. Joseph, just wanted to know how you feel after coming back from international break? Obviously you didn't get to play over the weekend, but how do you feel in this game and how do you think that the team handled having to play in Portland?
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: I feel really happy joining my colleagues. Was a long trip for me with my visa and everything. I'm really happy to be back and joining my team.
With this heavy loss it's really hard for us to take. This is not what we planned for. This is football. We need to take it sometimes and work towards the next game. Now we have everything in our hands. First we need to focus on the game that's ahead of us, especially this game. We need to just put it behind us and focus on the next game.
It's really important as you can see. Miami also drop points. LAFC dropped points. It's a good thing for us. But it was really something that is really unacceptable today. We're all disappointed, especially the players and everything. This is football. We did our part, but what needs to come out is what has just happened, and we need to do everything possible to come back stronger.
Q. Greg said he doesn't think this team gets arrogant or that you haven't had that arrogant feel to you. Is this humbling to lose 4-2, especially after you guys played so well over the weekend?
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: Yeah, like I said, nobody has that kind of mindset or anything like this. As I said, losing is part of the game. We need to accept. We need to accept it in good faith and work towards it.
Because we losing this, if we really tune our mind and just think about this game it's going to affect us in the four games we have. We need to win roughly three or four games if possible; and we are capable of doing that.
We can do everything. Everything is possible. Yeah, we will do whatever it takes to win these games, but everyone is really disciplined and focus on the next game to make it happen.
Q. Just wanted to ask you just how you're doing. You played 63 games since the start of September 2023. How are you feeling at this point of the season and heading into the playoffs physically and mentally?
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: Physically, mentally I'm really fine. I'm really good. Just this couple of few days I was flying a lot, especially moving from LA to New York, from New York to from Guana, from Guana back from Amsterdam, from Amsterdam back to Vancouver; stayed there two days.
I came again I think on Friday or Saturday. I train on Saturday and I had a rest on Sunday, Monday, yeah.
I feel good, even though was a lot of travel and hours. But, yeah, I still feel good. I did what I needed to also to help the club even though it wasn't enough for us to have these three points. I feel really blessed and happy it join my colleges.
Q. Finishing on the night, you and the team feel confident this was a blip, and one-time thing?
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: Yeah, yeah, I think it's just a one-time thing that has just happened. With this loss we need to take it. It's really hard for us to take it in our hands, but it's really a bad loss for us because our mentality and focus was to win this game to make the gap really big.
But we still have the chance. We have five points or four points different. We still got everything in our hands. As I said, we need to just focus. Let this game go and just focus on the next game and just prove our point, especially we're playing home.
We haven't lost home game. It's going to be a hell of a different kind of game, football against Vancouver on Saturday. I think we going to win and just go up again with another three points.
Q. John McCarthy did his best to try and keep the team in the game; scoring two goals away from home sometimes you would think is enough to get a point. Do you think the forward line is going to be a bit frustrated tonight with those missed chances? Did you guys speak about that in the locker room?
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: You mean our forward line?
Q. Yeah.
JOSEPH PAINTSIL: No, we are a little bit distracted because we lost this game, but we are not really distracted in the coming games because we know it's -- we were happy when we won our game LAFC, so if something like this has happened to us, we just need to take it at hand and just focus on the next game.
Our front line, we still have the hope, the feeling, the ability to be really dangerous in the front line with Riqui, Marco, Perc, Berry, we are really focused and everybody is willing to give everything.
As you can see, we do everything possible. Our front line, it's really unstoppable for a team to stop us. So we will just focus and keep believing in each other and I think everything will be possible.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports