Portland 4, LA Galaxy 2
Q. My name is Landon. I am 11 years old. Marco, with your experience in Europe soccer, how being in this situation with the LA Galaxy, what do you think the team needs to start winning again? Thank you.
MARCO REUS: Good question, thank you. Start winning.
Today, especially when I think about it, the 4-2, this reminds me like how we play in the season, it's like a roller coaster, we have a free kick against us, and we have two minutes, three minutes time to be organized in this situation. And then it's just one long ball, and we receive a penalty.
These small details cost you at the end, like a big comeback, because we was there. We shift the momentum to our side. But this is what I mean if we play so naïve in some situations, especially when we are there, when we have the momentum on our side, after the two, three, and then these kind of situations, we are not -- how I can say it -- aware of these situations. We are maybe thinking, okay, nothing -- nothing will happen and suddenly it's a penalty and we are out of the game.
So, yeah, it's details. Most of the type, it's details. It starts here in your head. The most important thing is to be ready for 90, 95 minutes, and yeah, we have too much in the game situations when we are not there.
Q. Had I, my name is Jeremy Contreras, and I am ten years old. I recently had two abdominal surgeries backed back-to-back, and I wasn't playing soccer for a little over six months. Now I noticed I sort of developed a fear of injuring my stomach. What advice can you give me to overcome this, having to recover on an injury yourself?
MARCO REUS: Keep going. Keep going. Try to be not scared. I mean, in the world, there are really more worse moments than cannot be, when you are not outside or inside the pitch. But try to keep going. You're not squared of any situations.
Life is too short, so enjoy the moment on the pitch. Work hard doing your rehab, and just have fun when you go out there. It's like, again, 80, 90 percent, in all the sports are mental things. So be strong in your head, and then you can do it for sure. You have to believe in yourself and be not squared. That's the most important thing.
Q. Thank you.
MARCO REUS: You're welcome. Good job. Great question.
Q. Greg brought you in and put you in a position to trigger, lead some passes in. Talk a little bit about that role, how you feel within that role and whether that's something that maybe we see you as one of the guys kind of abritering the attack.
MARCO REUS: I don't know, always I try, when I'm in, I always try to have impact in the game. I have a little bit the feeling that we are at the moment, we are squared to make mistakes. And like I said before to the other young guys, 90 percent, it starts with the head.
So then suddenly in the second half we play more forward; we overplay from positions; we don't play have A to B, from B to C. In these kind of situations, it's hard for the opposite team to defend when you overplay position.
Yeah, when you are just there, when you are active, and sometimes we are not active. We are proactive, and we are just waiting maybe for a situation that maybe can happen. But in soccer, especially when you play at home, you have to be more active. You have to believe really more in yourself as a team with the fans in your back.
So today was really, really disappointing because like how we concede the goals, it's really -- it's too easy for us.
And yeah, but like I said before, this is sometimes in life, sh-t happens, and we have to step up and be positive, and then we go again and try to win our first game next week.
Q. Thank you for taking the time. Wanted your thought on the penalty kick that they gave. You guys were 3-2. Had a lot of at the momentum. Penalty kick was given --
MARCO REUS: The penalty against?
Q. The penalty against you.
MARCO REUS: For me it was a penalty and we don't have to speak about the penalty. We have to speak about ten seconds before.
So why we are not ready to receive the ball when the ball is five seconds in the air. So we have enough time to be organized, and these are the details that makes the difference because we have the momentum on our side in these moments and then we give away immediately and then the game is finished.
So for me we don't have to speak about the penalty. We have to speak about, okay, how we can -- how aware we can be in these situations, how we can see the opponents.
Q. Last week you talked to John after the Austin game, and he said that you guys need that killer mentality. Do you agree with him a week later that you're lacking that?
MARCO REUS: Who said that?
Q. John McCarthy, the goalkeeper. Do you feel confident you guys will find that soon?
MARCO REUS: We need every game, every day, in the training mentality. It starts in the training. I said to the guys last week, the training has to be more with more quality, every single day. Because when you play with more quality in each of the training every day, then you can do it from this for the weekend.
And John, yeah, of course, we need more mentality, and we have to hate losing. But in the moment, we don't hate losing. It looks a little bit like this. So we have to be frustrated before the game, not after the game.
But like I said, I mean, we are not in a good position. So again, small details. And it's not like when we lose, we lose because the other team was much much better, no. Because we did mistakes. It's part of football, yes.
But unnecessary mistakes. So if we can stop this, then we start winning. But we have to stop this.
Q. You guys have three games coming up on the road and then three matches against California rivals. How big is this May coming up for you guys, and is there a line in the sand where the team is targeting saying things need to get better by X date?
MARCO REUS: Yeah, we will see. We have three away games. Every game is difficult in this league.
But like I said before, we have the quality on this team but we have to show it constantly and not 20 minutes like this and then five minutes this and then we concede a goal and then our heads are down. No, it has to be -- the standard has to be higher.
And like I said, again, these are small details that make the huge difference in these kind of games like today. But especially on the world, of course, we have to not start because we are still believing but of course this game today was a little bit of a playoff game for us, honestly, because we want to start with a home win today. Yeah, it was not good.
Now we have a little bit time off, couple days, and then we start again and try to win the next game.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports