Austin FC 2, LA Galaxy 1
Q. Greg, allowing the first goal, but, I don't know, maybe a weird start to the game. Explain why they were looking at the soccer balls. I don't know that we knew the answer to that.
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, weird start. The game sort of the lacked like intensity in the early part with the stop-start. Everybody, all the players were complaining, if you will, and stopping because they felt like the balls were flat, they weren't firm enough.
So it was both teams that were feeling that way, so soon as the guy or two hit the ball they would stop it and wanted to change the balls. We tried several. I don't think in the end they actually put any air in the balls. I think we just got on with it.
They tested the pressure. They said it was 14. I don't know what it's supposed to be exactly. I think ultimately we just got on with it. But it took a little while to get there.
I don't know if that had all the affect, but I just felt like the game started flat and carried on flat until some point in the second half I thought the intensity started to show and started to seem like a game that really kind of matter.
It took us in my opinion a little bit too long to get there. It was a big game for us tonight and I feel like we needed to come here and try to impose ourselves on the game and show the value of the game. It took us too long and two soft goals before I felt like we really got there.
Again, we missed a number of chances, so it was our formula where we give up soft goals and we don't finish off our opportunities and at the end of the day we leave very frustrated. That was the day again for us.
Q. How disappointing is that knowing that maybe a game in July shouldn't have a whole bunch of meaning in your season but it does right now and this is the result of that?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, it's the facts of the situation. You know, we were playing a team that was in the 9th spot and it's a Western Conference game. We have momentum a little bit on our side after playing two home games and two wins and coming with a third, and it was important, again, that we come out and try to establish -- both teams will be tired. It's the middle of the week. It's normal. You just kind of fight and get going, and, yeah, took us a little while to get going.
Sometimes that can happen but you can't give up goals working through that process. Again, thought our lines got a little too far apart there a few time and they played through us pretty easily in that first goal. Then we're down 1-0. Wanted to see more of a reaction. I think we saw a reaction later, but I wanted to see more of a reaction.
Came out in the second half. Thought we had a good start to the second half. Had a chance or two right off the bat to equalize; weren't able to do it.
The second goal was borderline ridiculous and not exactly sure. Kind of felt like Zanka was trying to shield it. He could have cleared it but he was kind of waiting for Novak. Novak was thinking he was going to clear it, then he decides to come to the ball; doesn't come with real conviction.
In the end it gets poked away and ends up in the back of our net. Just, again, a situation we need to take control and ownership of. It's frustrating, yeah on a day -- based on the position where we are every game is meaningful. Doesn't matter where or when it is or anything.
It's unfortunate. Now we have to find probably a difficult place to play along the way where we got to make up these points if we want to stay in this thing, because today was an opportunity to try to get right back into it. We still had a lot of work to do and that was a missed opportunity.
Q. You talked about trying to find a way back. You got to go across town on Saturday. How do you switch, get rid of this one and looking forward to Saturday?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, if nothing else, I hope and I said this in the locker room, the lesson of the day is we're a much better team when we play with the right level of intensity, and I think when we get there, we're a good team and hard to play against.
When we live in this moderate intensity space we're vulnerable. So hopefully it's a reminder again that you can't go to LAFC and be in the middle ground intensity-wise. You got to show up with maximum intensity. Everybody knows that and looks forward to this game. They know what's at stake.
So I think guys have to shake it off and turn around. Doesn't matter what happened yesterday or what's going to happen tomorrow. It's going to be about Saturday and that 90 minutes. Our guys been around long enough to know that. Tonight was a missed opportunity, but we got to move forward.
In that locker room by the time we left there was a lot of focus on what's in front of them.
Q. Early on Edwin got the yellow card, within the first three minutes, whatever, and maybe two minutes probably should have got another but didn't. Did the first one impact his play and the team's play as well?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I think -- any time you're on the yellow card, especially that early in the game it's going to modify some your thought process to your decisions. So I was -- if he wouldn't have settled down I was ready to change him at halftime. Towards the end of the first half he fell into the rhythm of the game and that I could trust him for a little longer in the game, because I think he's an important piece for us.
But, yeah, any time you get a card that early it changes the way you play. Even you saw Biro, once he got his yellow card he wouldn't get close to Gabe. Just kept backing off and trying to win time.
So it does impact the way you play the game. For Eddie it did. After a few minutes he kind of resettled back in. There is definitely some moments that he jumped out of some tackles or off pulled out some things where he could have fouled a guy just because he maybe would've stopped a transition because probably would've taken a yellow in there, so definitely changed this game.
Q. (No microphone.)
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, I mean, I think at that point in the game it was probably fair enough that between the two of them they equaled a yellow card. I want to leave it at that. There are some other moments in the game where I didn't necessarily fully agree with the call or what happened. I'll not overall assess the referee today.
Q. Greg, Julián took a nasty collision there. Do you have any word on what the injury status is?
GREG VANNEY: I don't know exactly. I know obviously we made the sub for concussion safety reasons. It was a head injury and he got hit kind of in the side of face so it's kind of swollen on his cheek.
I haven't heard if they really established he had a concussion or if we were just being safe about it. I don't know exactly yet.
Q. Paintsill today, he was just attacking the guy, and I think he could have done just a little bit more. Do you encourage him to just keep going at that guy because he had him all day?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, again, as it relates to Joe, I never want him to slow down. I want Joe to stay at speed, whether that's picking up the ball and running at somebody or if he decides to lay it off quickly and take off or run behind the lines. The faster and the more direct Joe's game is the more difficult he is to defend, so I always want him building speed.
I felt like he had the fullback on skates a bit today. Then it was matter of how are the attacks going to finish in terms of whether it was his decisions or our movements or things to turn some of those opportunities into chances.
But I thought he was aggressive in the way we need him to be give aggressive over the course the night. Gabe was aggressive too. Just didn't take the chances. But I thought both of them were trying to attack the game appropriately. Just it comes down to execution in that final action.
Q. Emiro Garces has done really will with Maya Yoshida Yoshida in recent games. With both of them, the team conceded just twice in the last four games. Big improvement from the 1.9 goals conceded on average. Tonight Zanka stepped in and we went right back to the average. Can you talk about what went behind that decision and what did you see in the game?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, it was a calculation to make a rotation. Emiro is sitting on four yellow cards at the moment. It's a calculation with three games in the week knowing also we play LAFC and they have Bouanga on the side that you have to defend. It's a little bit of a calculation of trying to protect him in some ways, hoping that our too veteran center backs can hold the fort down in a game like tonight at home against a team that's missing their primary forward, and we didn't do it so missed. The calculation was wrong and that's the facts.
Q. (No microphone.)
GREG VANNEY: He'll stay on four but he's available for the game on the weekend, yeah.
Q. Did you see the hand ball in the second half, that 55th minute?
GREG VANNEY: I only saw it live. I haven't seen it in replay. The guys on the bench were like, definitely hand ball. There are certain things that very much confuse me in the game. Hand ball is one of those.
I got more confused watching the World Cup, Club World Cup final. More than I was before I watched that. I don't know. I would have to see it back again. I mean, seemed like we were on a pretty good attack and his hand stopped the attack. Yeah, I don't know.
I wish we would've got the call. I don't know. The rule confuses me. I feel like one day it's one way and the other day it's the other.
Q. The hands going down to brace and still a hand ball? Is that where you're up in the air with that?
GREG VANNEY: Yeah, yeah, I think -- again, if you're on the ground and you're a brace maybe that's one thing. If your arm is not on the ground and you block it. But evidently if you put your hand on top of the ball that's also not a hand ball. We saw that in the Gold Cup final. I don't know all the ins and outs on that.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports