- Match: FC Cincinnati vs Atlanta United
- Location: Nippert Stadium, Cincinnati, OH
- Date: August 31, 2019
- Final Score: FCC 0-2 ATL (Recap | Highlights)
Atlanta United FC Head Coach Frank de Boer
On the difficulty of the match
“Yeah, but I am still satisfied about the form because when they park two buses in front of their own goal, it is quite difficult to create chances. We had the patience. You saw in the first half that we, I think, one or two times lost patience and directly get a counterattack against us. After that, corner and they had the chance. I think we did much better. You know, with Columbus Crew we could do the same, and a lot of times we lost the ball in end face, their own box from the opponent. I think we did much better, and you see when they open up a little bit, like the first goal, that we can punish them. I think the most important thing is that we are playing concentrated and we showed in the last five minutes of the first half that we were creating some small chances. And I said, just be patient. After half an hour, they are going to be tired and we get our chances. Of course it is always nice to have a player like Josef (Martinez), who can make a difference. But still, it is always difficult when you play an organized team. They played against Montreal. They get a good result out of it and we get a good result, because I think we didn’t lose our patience.”
On Josef Martinez’s performance
“Yeah, because you that they have to come more and that opens up more spaces, of course, for us. That was a fantastic goal. Good transition to attack and the second goal was more beautiful, I think. I spoke with Ron Jans after the game. He said sometimes you just have to applaud a fantastic goal and that was a fantastic goal.”
On applying pressure in the race for first in Eastern Conference
“Yeah, of course. It is always one game at a time. If you turn around, we have another game in front of us. So, it is unbelievable how fast it goes. Tomorrow traveling to Atlanta and next day one training, which is very light, and then we have San Jose. We have to be ready and we cannot think about the second game that is coming up. First San Jose and of course we want three points, because we still have a good chance of being number one. Of course, it depends on New York (City) and Philadelphia, but I think if we win the last for games, then I am quite positive we are on top.”
Atlanta United FC goalkeeper Brad Guzan
On the difficulty of saving a tough corner in the first half
“(I was) able to get a finger to it, and Eric (Remedi) obviously heads it off the bar or whatever, does his best. That moment, it’s all hands on deck and just kind of trying to keep it out the back of the net.”
On the importance of a shutout
“For sure. It’s hugely important. We pride ourselves on keeping clean sheets. We pride ourselves on being a team that’s tough to beat, and the last two results haven’t been good enough from a defensive standpoint. So, to come out and get a clean sheet was definitely important.”
On making FC Cincinnati press forward to create opportunities
“A little bit, but on both goals, it was transition. It wasn’t anything more than our quality on two plays. We know we’ve got talented guys, but at the same time we knew we were going to have to work. In the first half, aside from the set piece, they barely crossed midfield. For us, it was always going to be important to break them down, and in the second half, it started to open up a little bit. Like I said, our quality in those two plays was very good.”
FC Cincinnati Head Coach Ron Jans
Overall thoughts on the match
“I think the first 15 minutes of the match, 90 percent of the possession was of Atlanta and we had to defend so deep, that when he had the ball we had no options, maybe [Emmanuel Ledesma] up front. After the first 15 minutes we got our moments and especially in the second half, we changed the press with Kekuta (Manneh) helping [Ledesma] and [Ledesma] and Kekuta (Manneh) pressing it helped and maybe we were in a moment in the game over-confident. We got some corner kicks, there was a lot of pushing and going on in the box and I think 10 minutes gone in the second half and we thought we were going to score a goal on the corner kick. They have the better team. They play better football. They have better players. But we played with so much passion and we did the game plan almost perfect in the second half, except for one thing…finishing. I do not know the stats, but maybe we had more and better chances than Atlanta did, but they have this guy called Josef Martinez. I think you can only applaud the second goal, it was quality. So happy with the team, happy with performance, but not with the result.”
On finishing being the problem
“That is very easy, you just have to tell (Joseph-Claude) Gyau and Rashawn (Dally) you have to score a goal and they will do it the next time. (laughs) It’s not that easy. So always it’s about confidence and when you score the first goal it’s easy to score the second, but when you miss the first chance, I think (Joseph-Claude) Gyau the second chance, he hesitated so much he was afraid to score a goal. That’s also efficiency, you can only change it by finishing and doing it a lot of times and that’s what we want to see and we will see what the future is from the team and the players who missed their chances. I coached a lot of games against top teams and my teams, most of the time were at the bottom of the table and I can’t get used to that.I hate it, but we’re mostly set up and you can see the difference in finishing and tonight was mostly the same.”
On the passion the team showed tonight and game plan to try to rattle Atlanta
“I’m sorry, but maybe I saw another game, because there was only one team complaining about the referees and asking for cards and that was not our team. I will never tell my players to make fouls and do everything. So I did not see that.”
Thoughts on Josef Martinez
“I think he scored twice, but we haven’t seen that much of him. But in the counter attack, especially after the first goal, he has the speed and one versus one and the space behind. Our back four, of course, we want to mark him. I think the defense from (Maikel) van der Weff and (Nick) Haggland did well in defending (Josef) Martinez, but in counterattack you do not have to say you have to mark him and in those situations he was too good.”
FC Cincinnati defender Andrew Gutman
On tonight’s match
“ I think we played really well. We were a bit unlucky not to finish off our chances, but you know the two real chances they got, they finished off. So, you’ve got to give them that, but I think overall we were really good tonight and I’m proud of the performance.”
On if it’s difficult to watch them finish chances
“That’s the game. You miss chances. We’ve just got to get on with it and keep pushing. I thought we did that really well. A couple of great goals by them. One of them, you just kind of give it to them. It was a fantastic goal, but overall I thought we played really well, and we were a bit unlucky not to get a result here tonight.”
On the two-day break between games
“I think it’s just recover as much as possible, and get fresh for Saturday's game. Three games in seven days is not easy. So you’ve got to rely on almost the whole team to play. So you’ve just got to take it day by day, recover, and get ready for Saturday.”
FC Cincinnati midfielder Joseph-Claude Gyau
On tonight’s performance
“I felt like it was a tough loss. It could have gone either way with the way the chances were. I thought that the first half, if I put my first one away, and we also had one off a corner kick. If we put those away, we could have gone up early, but we didn’t. And well, you know, they have Josef Martinez. He put his two chances away and that’s how the game went.”
On how difficult it was to concede after being on the front foot
“Yeah it was tough. It was like a dagger. We were well in the game. We had flow. We had good chances. We’re getting forward, and then to get a goal off a counter like that was a bit sour.”
On playing with Andrew Gutman
“It was good. We have a good relationship, a good friend of mine. So, playing with him is always good. We communicate very well. I thought we did pretty good on the left side. But yeah, playing with Andrew (Gutman) is good.”
