Real Salt Lake 0 vs. 2 LAFC
September 4, 2022; Banc of California Stadium, Los Angeles, California
Real Salt Lake (11-9-9, 42 points); LAFC (19-7-3, 60 points)
Head Coach Pablo Mastroeni
On the complexities of defending:
“They really went man to man in the back; they were willing to play their two center backs against our two forwards and that’s the risk they were taking. I thought a couple times we broke them in the first half and in the second half, but again, it’s just finishing up the play, and we fell short tonight.”
On the new additions to the team:
“[Braian Ojeda and Bryan Oviedo] both played well, Oviedo played in a little more advanced position and it was a little uncomfortable for him, but defensively, they did a lot of good work. Ojeda got off a plane a couple days ago, and for him to come into a game like this and look like he’s fully fit and ready to go, that’s some really good action on both sides of the ball. I think they both played well.”
On fresh minds and fresh legs:
“That’s going to be our challenge, hopefully we can get some of these guys a little more fit as we progress this week. Obviously, there are some tired legs out there, eight days, next week’s going to be seven. We’re going to look at how we plan for those games, we’ve got some tough games coming up but we’ve got to find a way.”
On what he saw on the first goal:
“I’m going to have to go back on the video and take a peek, but in real time, it looks like both Marcelo [Silva] and Zac [MacMath] were going for the same ball. We took on quite a bit of pressure and there were some other opportunities that they had that I thought were more dangerous. To concede on that after defending really well for the first half in particular and the start of the second half, it was a bit of a tough one to swallow.”
