UNION AT RED BULLS OPEN CUP QUALIFIER

April 27, 2010
Philadelphia Union Communications

PHILADELPHIA UNION TEAM MANAGER PETER NOWAK

On tonight’s performance:
 

“Overall, I was not pleased with the first half effort, that’s for sure. Not the quality we normally have and should have as a team. The score showed that it was not a good enough effort from us and that’s why we made a couple of changes, that’s why players ran after the game. Just to make sure they understand that we mean business.”

On Sebastien Le Toux’s injury:
 

“It looks like a MCL sprain. We are going to do some more tests tomorrow and make sure what kind of steps he needs to take and what we need to do to bring him back as soon as we can… It is still too early to say what kind of grade of sprain it is. Like I said, we are going to run more tests tomorrow.”

On having the team run after the match:
 

“I just won’t tolerate half (effort from players) and if you don’t enjoy playing on the field you will enjoy running, and if you don’t run during the game you could run after the game. That’s how it is and that is how it’s going to be.”

On possible changes for the next match against Los Angeles Galaxy:
 

“You know, there are 24 guys and there is always coming and going. We want to give everyone a fair chance to perform and a fair chance to play and give them their minutes so we will see what happens after a couple of games from today.”

PHILADELPHIA UNION FORWARD ALEJANDRO MORENO

On the game:
 

“We didn’t start the game the way we wanted so we ended up giving up two goals in the first half, pretty soft goals, so we were pretty disappointed about that. We came out in the second half with a better attitude. We tried to get back into the game. We ended up scoring a goal and with 10 men we tried to push the tempo a little bit and we came up short again.”

On coming on as a substitute:
 

“Well, the rhythm of the game wasn’t where we wanted it to be and the tempo of the game wasn’t where we wanted it to be. We wanted to impact the game in a positive manner and try to get a goal back. We did that and in the end we were trying to obviously tie the game but came up short and we’re disappointed, because I think we’re a team that can do a lot of good things. But we have to do it on a consistent basis and throughout 90 minutes.”

PHILADELPHIA UNION DEFENDER DANNY CALIFF

On the game:
 

“I think overall for us it was disappointing. I think the first half was a poor effort, and the second half we were a little bit better, but overall it was not a fun one tonight.”

On playing after missing the last regular season game due to a red card:
 

“There was a lot of changes in the team, so it was mostly about playing together and working hard, but obviously that didn’t work, especially in the first half.”

On looking ahead:
 
“I think if you look at every game in the league so far we’ve improved, and so just getting to know each other and understanding tendencies and buying into the system are what we need to keep on doing.”