On preparing for opponents throughout his career
- No, that’s me, I’ve always done that. I’ve said so many times; you don’t have to study that much when you play against a team if you don’t remember who was good and who wasn’t and who can be and who cannot be good, or whatever. Then you have a problem. You need to analyze that right from the start. When I first arrived, I didn’t know about the league. I didn’t know about playing in Salt Lake or in Denver at high altitude.
- Playing in Houston with a 4 o’clock kick-off [and] it’s 110 [degrees] sometimes, or whatever, you know, you have to deal with it. I don’t think I’m good at studying, because, you know, it’s your sport; if you don’t know the guys that you’re playing against, then you’re doing the wrong thing. Yeah, if you want to call it studying, yes, but I just call it one more thing.
On Dom Dwyer getting called in to replace Defoe
- He’s doing extremely well, if I can say, but, you know, sometimes, names – Jermain Defoe came [and] he did well – but you have guys like [Toronto FC midfielder Michael] Bradley and Dominic Dwyer doing extremely well for their teams and scoring a lot of goals. But, at the end of the day, he’s here. He’s enjoying it. He received a late call I heard [and] he was happy to come.
- Let’s put it this way: at the end of the day he is here. Maybe [Seattle Sounders forward] Clint [Dempsey] said the other day that if they were going back to East and West then you give more chances to a lot of players to be in this situation but also, no disrespect to anyone, but I’m sure that the Portland fans, you know, also want to see Bayern Munich. It’s a debate that you can have but, and I say that’s a good thing, too, but as Clint said the other day at the press conference, if you’re playing against Bayern Munich that that means you have less players coming rather than if you do East versus West.
On Portland fans
- Oh their fans. My guys that play in the NBA always tell me that Portland is one of the toughest places to play in the NBA. The arena is always rocking. They said to me that that the Sacramento Kings, back in the day, was also. Portland, Detroit, it’s definitely pretty loud. I guess that’s just the fanbase. Whenever a Portland team is playing, whatever the sport is, they support their team. I guess that’s what it is.
On what Portland players Will Johnson and Diego Valeri will bring to the game
- I mean, when you play against Will Johnson, with the experience that he has, you know, obviously, with the years he had at Salt Lake, winning over there, you know, he’s a different type of player than Diego Valeri can be. You need the Will Johnson’s, and the Valeri’s that can do something out of nothing and basically create a goal or score himself, with class. Usually when he scores, [it’s] always a screamer.
- Any other guy like Will Johnson will try to stop your play, kick you sometimes. That’s the way it is. You need a guy like that; he’s a winner and a great leader. That’s the type of thing he does and what he brings to the game in general.
On Bayern Munich
A couple of teams in the world, obviously, if I put my beloved Arsenal on the side, you have teams in the world that when you talk about them, you see big games, you see finals, [and] you see their shirt. You know, the likes of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, [AC] Milan and Inter Milan. I’m not going to name all of the big dogs but, you know, first of all, respect, because it’s very difficult to stay at the top for a very long time and they’ve been doing it.
It’s going to be a hell of a challenge for us to contain that team and to try and win the game, especially with the amount of time we have to get [our act] together. But, respect, is the thing that you think about when you think about Bayern Munich. They didn’t always win every single year but, you know, they’re always battling with Borussia Dortmund. The word I would say is ‘respect’.
