San Diego FC 2, LA Galaxy 1
Q. We talked with Greg about how you guys, with the motivation from El Tráfico that you were building towards that win. You put a solid 90-plus minutes into this game do you feel like you're losing momentum and not finding that momentum towards the win?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: I think we need to be better at the end of games. I think taking a point out of here would have been huge for us, especially like you said, you come from El Tráfico,
huge game, you could in here, take the lead, you lose it a minute later. It's another big thing that we're missing always.
But at the end of the day, last 15 minutes need to be better from all of us. Our mindset needs to be better. Saying, you know what, from here, we are not losing. We are just taking a point and then we go home, and we just have to win games.
And today just wasn't good enough. I think everybody is frustrated. That one play decided the outcome, and at the end of the day, we know that we're better than that.
Q. What's the mental load for you guys? You could see after the final whistle that you looked frustrated, and I have to imagine exhausted as well.
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: It's frustrating. But at the end of the day we have to still stay strong. I want to say it's a long season but it's really not at this point. It's the only way, sticking together, trying to get as much as we can out of people and at the end of the day, our mentality needs to be better.
Like I said, when we go on away trips, a point is not that bad. We just need to learn how to finish out games. Just frustrating and not good enough today.
Q. The juxtaposition of last year and now being in a 15-game winless streaks, I don't know many people that have gone through that before. Can you explain the highs and lows between the two?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: I've never been with something like this. Yeah, you lose three or four games but not winless in this many. I think it takes a little toll on you, and you try -- when you go up, you get a little excited and sometimes they take it away from you right away. It's tough.
The one thing, we still battle. We still fight. And that's something that we can be proud of. But at the same time, fighting and all this at the end of the day, we want points. We want to win games. That's what counts in this league.
Q. We have seen, especially going back the last three games, Philadelphia, you guys had a great first half and then within five minutes of halftime ending, it's tied. This one, within a minute, it's tied. What's not happening when you guys are finally getting leads?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: I think if we had the answers, we would be doing it now. But at the same time, I think it's mentally we need to be engaged. After we score, the first five minutes of the game, the last five minutes of the laugh, first five minutes of the second half, last five minutes of the game, after goals, I think we need to be better.
I think this year, we haven't been that strong. We have taken the lead in the last three games now, and we're losing it to quick. I think that's tough for us. Today, I thought we had a couple more chances, and the game is different. The last 30 seconds, minute and a half of the game left, one mistake and we get punished.
Q. We've seen so many weird situations where you guys are kind of paying for it. You make major mistakes, you expect to pay a certain amount of time and you're paying, like, two or three times that, that many?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: I think get paid [we pay] every single one.
Q. It seems that way. Has it gotten beyond frustration? Is there a thing where this is the narrative that keeps happening, is there almost an expectation that, okay, you know, is this going to happen again?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: We talk about we need to be without mistakes. If you have a perfect game maybe things like that don't happen. But it's hard in soccer to have a perfect game or not have mistakes. I think everybody has mistakes. I think we are just getting punished.
Right now, on the other side right now, other teams are making mistakes and we're punishing them and that's unfortunate. Mentally we need to be better. We need to be stronger and we need to be prepared for things and making sure that if someone makes a mistake we have to be there to cover them.
At the end of the day I know everybody is frustrated and we're frustrated and we want a win. I keep saying, we can keep going back and forth on things that we say and stuff but at the end of the day, we need points and we need wins.
Q. Thoughts on Novak getting back into the lineup and his performance today?
DIEGO FAGÚNDEZ: I thought he did well. At the end of the day, there's a lot of competition on the team, and whoever is in there, J-Mac or Novak. I know they are going to be fighting for each other and supporting each other, whoever is on there.
And for us on the field, it's the same thing. There are players that come and go, and at the end of the day we just need to be prepared and make sure that they are ready for every game and support them as much as we can.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports