LA Galaxy 4, Colorado 1
Q. Overall thoughts on the game, and also looking at how you guys seem to come alive in the second half against Colorado, when a lot of teams usually fade with the altitude and everything that's going on.
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I mean, we knew it was going to be a challenging game, altitude, opposition at home playing for their season. You know they came out and shifted their lineup a bit and went to a straight back five. It was sometimes not so easy to penetrate in the back, and so some of our attacks stayed in front of them a little more than we'd like.
So we were just trying to solve that issue through different parts of the game, just how we wanted to break their lines. Different things that I think you're just trying to solve some of the problems of the game as they arise through the course of the game which is, you know, it happens in the game, especially when you have an opposition that is playing for their lives. I thought the guys did a good job of just kind of working through it.
Ultimately, I think in the end, you know, when a team starts to push for us, against us, spaces open up, transitions start to show themselves. They went out of being in a back five into a four, and then they put a winger on the right back to try to take up high positions, all those things are very aggressive attacking sort of positive tours. And I think we're just so good in transition that if you open yourselves up, a team opens up unnecessarily, there can be a lot of penalties for that and we took advantage of some of those things.
A couple others, we didn't necessarily make the right choice on the pass or we missed the pass for one reason or another. We probably had a few more chances to get on goal. But yeah, I mean, part of it for us today was remaining -- trying to remain a little bit patient through the course of a game and not feeling like we had to rush into anything. We knew they had to win today and we needed to try to play against that a little bit. At times we went too fast; at times it was fine.
But at the end of the day in the playoffs, it doesn't really matter. You get through and you move on to the next round.
Q. On the goals from Pec, obviously a little flukey but looking at Joseph, that's one of the guys you've been trying to get going, and having him score quote, unquote, the game-winning goal. How important is that for you guys?
GREG VANNEY: It's huge. I think Joe has been putting in the shift on that side. He's had to defend low for us sometimes and then he's breaking out in transition. Sometimes he makes hard runs in transitions and we don't get it to him in the right ways.
You know, he had the goal called back in Houston, which was a little bit unfortunate. But he gets this one tonight and it proved to be a massive goal. Allowed us to play from the top for most of the game, which helps us out because again, at some point they have to open themselves up to try to get that goal back and that's when we really punished them over the last few games.
I'm happy for him. Again, it's not always easy over there, and he's doing the work and he's committing to the moments. He had another good shot earlier and ended up being right at Zach. But in the second half, he had another one that he didn't quite hit, I don't think, as well as he'd like to. But he was getting some looks which is important to keep him involved.
Q. Riqui Puig, obviously continuing his fantastic end-of-the-season form. But right at the end of the season, he was snubbed for that MVP short list and seemed to have not missed a beat here with two braces in two games. Do you feel he should have been considered in that MVP conversation? And also, just how ready do you feel he is to lead this team to a championship this year?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, look, Riqui is definitely one of the top talents in our league. Ultimately how people decide who is in the MVP running, there's probably a small number of guys who are in that conversation.
I think Riqui is in that conversation. I don't really have a dog in the fight in terms of who the top two or three or one is. I think he's an important player for us. He drives our team from possessions to attacks. He finishes things for us.
I think Riqui on any day will trade in the opportunity to win an MLS Cup before an MVP trophy. I think he's continuing to develop inside of our team. Ready to continue to be the engine and motor inside our group. I definitely think he's amongst that group, that cast of players who were there.
But at the end of the day you know, of all of our guys, Gabriel was that one who had a great season was the one that was recognized, and he deserves it, as well.
I don't know, I'm happy that Riqui is playing great now because this is the stage in which you make the biggest statement right now, not during the regular season.
Q. Just wanted to ask you, just how satisfied were you with the defense, the overall team, and kind of being able to close down this game and this series already? And you know, those maybe last ten minutes before the goal came, it seemed like Colorado had the momentum. How happy are you with the defensive effort?
GREG VANNEY: I'm really pleased because honestly John didn't really have to make too many saves. I mean, at the end of the day, I don't remember, maybe I just don't remember. But I don't remember John having to come up with a really big save in the second half.
I feel like when they got their head on a ball or something it was always things bouncing in front of him. He was usually kind of containing those things. The guys did a good job of dealing with things in front of the goal and trying to block and get in front of shots minus the one in the first half. I thought we did a good job of trying to prevent some of the service, and if they got it, we had good density in front of the goal to be able to clear things out.
As the game progressed, you always know in these games when the opposition is playing for their life, as I said earlier, they are going to start throwing more numbers higher. They are going it start pushing guys into the box. They brought on a second forward and then they brought on a winger to play as a fullback, and you've got to manage those situations and the repercussions for them doing that is they open up themselves on the other side and that's when we finish the game.
Just really proud of the group for digging in, and yeah, protecting our goal, protecting our box as much as we needed to and then utilizing the space on the transition.
I thought Eddie had a big game helping out our group just in front of the back line just covering a lot of ground and territory over the course of the game. Not always easy to do here, and he grinded it out through the whole game.
So I thought he was great and I thought the center backs did a good job of just dealing with stuff in front of our goal, and, of course, John was there when we needed him everything and was dealt with.
Q. After the Houston game in the press conference, you talked about mental engagement and closing out, and during the season, we've talked about ruthlessness, as well; that was sheer ruthlessness at the end of this match which you must have loved.
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I think both things were on display at the end, which was a group of guys that were working hard to protect the goal, protect their box, playing every play defensively. Didn't mean it was perfect, but they were putting in the shift.
When our group does that, again, and we make the plays we need to make, the space on the other side is where we are ruthless. And we've shown that in the last three games against these guys. And I think there were reasons why we weren't great in the Houston game, and we tried to address those coming into this series, and I thought we were a lot better in the series with some of those things.
I thought the guys did a really good job of being resilient to cross the back. We know the quality and the capacity of our group if they are spaced to be running forward into. We've been great at that all season. I think it's just combining the two at the end of games has been -- especially in these last two games, has just been really big for us.
Q. Now that the team has 22 or 23 days off, thoughts on the long layoff, and potentially what the team could get up to? Is there a potential for a friendly anywhere in there?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I mean, we sat down and we've set out a schedule depending on whether we won this tonight and we had a long stretch, or whether we had to play next week in a shorter stretch.
You know, the guys already sent in their negotiators for trying to get an extra day off or two. So we had to deal with that already.
Yeah, what we'll do is we'll give the guys a little chance to recover, and because it's such a long break, we'll come in, and we've established a way that we want to maintain rhythm. We'll certainly play a couple of friendlies, whether they are with teams from the outside or whether we just do it internally. At this part of the year, you kind of like to have guys who all know the importance of this time of year so we don't get into any silliness.
But we'll see. But yeah, we're going to try to maintain our rhythm. It's tough in the playoffs when you have three weeks between one game and the next. That planning needs to get figured out a little bit better down the line.
But yeah, we'll stay in the best rhythm we can and be ready for the next one.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports