QUOTE SHEET
Real Salt Lake 2-1 Sporting Kansas City
Children’s Mercy Park; Kansas City, Kansas
August 10, 2019
Real Salt Lake
Assistant Coach Tyrone Marshall
On the game:
“It’s a big win for us. Coming into this game, the talk was having a good road mentality. I thought the boys did fantastic tonight. We went down early but we showed resilience. We’ve been in the trenches before and we came out on the wrong side of a lot of those games. We showed character tonight and that was fantastic. We went down, but we came back and rebounded. In the second half I thought we did well. Corey made a beautiful run and Sava found him on the back post. But again, it just showed the character of the boys in the locker room – very resilient and that road mentality that we’ve been showing for the last three or four games. It’s been very good.”
On coming back to win:
“We don’t want to go down a goal, but it happens. KC is a tough environment. You could tell early in the game they were getting a lot of calls and eventually something was going to happen or we were going to break a little bit. But again, the resilience that the boys showed – we didn’t put our head down, we came back and got an opportunity and scored off of the free kick. It’s great to see that. It just shows that we’re growing as a group and at this time in the season we want to be on the upslope so that was fantastic from them tonight.”
On Corey Baird building confidence:
“It’s very good, for Corey especially. Corey is one of those guys that needs to get in a rhythm. Previous games it seemed like he was out of rhythm a bit and we gave him an opportunity to rest because was in the national team earlier in the year. I’m glad to see Corey on good form now and this is where we want to see guys clicking. He was engaged tonight, he was active, getting behind with runs, checking back. That’s the Corey that we saw last year and that’s the Corey that we want going forward and that’s what we got tonight. Kudos to him. I’m excited for him. I’m glad for Corey and I’m glad for the group.”
Forward Damir Kreilach
On the game:
“At the end of the day it was a hard game, but well done for every player because we put hard work in. It was a brilliant performance. We know that Sporting is a great team. To take three points here, I have to say well done to our team.”
On getting a second straight comeback win:
“That’s the mentality of this group. It’s not so easy to do it two times straight. It shows that every one of us is on the same page. This is how you have to work and how you have to learn and how you have to play to the end.”
On the importance of the win:
“We knew before the game that it’s not a three-point game, it’s a six-point game. We took the six points and we leave Sporting nine points behind us and that’s so important. We just have to stay humble to work had and to go step-by-step. I know we have 10 games until the end and we will give our best.”
Forward Corey Baird
On the win:
“It feels great. The last couple of years we’ve had a great rivalry with Sporting. Their fans really brought it today and it was a fun game to play in.”
On the toughness of this game:
“You could definitely see sometimes people left a little more in their tackles and with the heat and stuff it was going to be a game where a team really has to battle. Those fifty-fifties where you can get the ball back really meant a lot.”
On his brace:
“I think I’ve struggled a little bit this year to get on the stat sheet so it’s nice to be getting some goals here and helping the team out to get the win.”
On his second goal:
“Sporting is a team that throws a lot of numbers forward and they’re really good at it but on the counter it’s a good place where we can get at them and there’s a lot of space. Savarino played me an amazing ball. He had tons of space and I was able to find tons of space on the back side. It’s something we want to do against a team like this. If we can weather the storm defensively and then get the ball and break, we can be really dangerous. Over the course of the year we’ve shown how we can be dangerous on the counter.”
On the depth of Real Salt Lake:
“I think it’s huge. Over the course of the season we’ve had some injuries. Albert’s (Rusnak) been in and out for a bit. Sam (Johnson) was out for about a month and he just got back. I think with all the options we have that everyone’s contributing. It makes it tough on the coaching staff to pick an 11 but it makes it tough on the other team to scout us as well.”
