New York Red Bulls Manager Jesse Marsch
Thoughts on the match…
For us, it wasn’t a perfect game by any means but I thought overall to come into a tough place to play on opening night and come away with a draw, was all-in-all a pretty good result and a pretty good performance for us.
On the difficulties players had with footing…
Maybe a little of both [pitch condition and player’s boots]. Early in the year, the fields aren’t going to be perfect, that’s for sure. There’s going to be elements; we’ve been training in snow. I didn’t think it impacted the game too much.
On Sporting KC’s late push after Erik Palmer-Brown’s substitution into the match..
I actually thought that putting Palmer-Brown in was a little bit of a defensive move because then we put in an extra forward. In the end, it would have felt pretty awful if we had given up that last goal, if Dom would have been able to stick that one. A lot of little things to still work on and the way I look at this is we’re kind of shifting the way we’re playing and there’s a lot of new concepts going on the field and it’s about building layers. So we’re only starting with some of the initial layers and we have a lot more layers to go but overall, again, the mentality of the group to compete and play and press was really good tonight.
On Bradley Wright-Phillips’ performance…
We would like to get Bradley more involved, that’s for sure. He did have a couple advantages that didn’t come his way or the way that we would want them to. Not sure about some of the offside calls, I’ll have to take another look at that again but I continue to feel strongly that Bradley will find his chances and we have a good midfield behind him.
New York Red Bulls winger Lloyd Sam
On scoring the equalizer in the 54th minute…
I think Felipe turned and I dropped into midfield. I turned and had a run across the middle. I did a little chop and then whipped it into the corner. It felt great to score. This place is always difficult to play in, so to keep the crowd quiet and all that was very important.
New York Red Bulls midfielder Sacha Kljestan
Thoughts on the game…
It's 50-50 for me. I think if you had told me before the game that we would come away with one point in our opening game, at Kansas City, I think we would have taken it. After going through the game, I think we all came out disappointed and that's a good sign.
On the team's performance…
I think our mentality was good tonight. We could have been a little better on the ball and had more patience, but overall a good first step.
On the team's attack...
I think our confidence in the final third and the final pass let us down tonight. I think us attacking guys come away disappointed because we could have done better. We should have had a little more patience, especially when we were up a man.
On his first game with New York...
It was nice to play 90 minutes. It was nice to be on the field with my teammates, who I love. We fought for each other and had a great mentality, so all that felt good. Personally, i think I can do a lot better so I'm hopeful for the future.
New York Red Bulls midfielder Dax McCarty
Thoughts on the game...
I think before the game if you had asked us if we would have taken this result, coming into a new season with a new system, new coach and new players, we probably would have taken the result. If you ask me now, I'll tell you we are disappointed. I thought it was a pretty even game for the most part. I thought a lot of feeling out in the beginning and once we settled down, we were pretty good with the ball and had a little more of the game. But we went down 1-0. I thought our reaction was great. Obviously, Lloyd Sam scored a fantastic goal and the disappointment comes with not doing more when we were a man up. I thought the game was there for the taking for us. We weren't good enough. We weren't sharp enough and when we went a man up, we almost got too content. We thought it was going to be a walk in the park, but in reality it galvanized them and they started taking it to us a little more. I think the overall feeling is disappointment.
On the team's attack...
We had a lot of chances. We had a lot of opportunities to get the ball in the box from wide positions. When we did get in those positions, I don't think we picked out runners enough. When you put together a team with new coaches and a couple new players, the last thing to come is always the attacking part. It's always a little bit easier to defend and to stop goals, but it's very hard to create goals. We have really good attacking players, we have a great goalscorer and very dangerous attacking players, so I'm not worried about it. I think those connections will come with time. But you can see that all the guys were trying do the right things.
Takeaways from the match...
I think we did a lot of the things we had talked about. We did a lot of the things that will make us successful as a team. We want to press teams high and make them uncomfortable. Kansas City is a team that when you play them here at Sporting Park, they are always going to try and dictate the game. They always play on their terms and I thought for the most part we took them out of their comfort zone. I think we flipped the game on them a bit. That was a plan of ours going into the game. That being said, they are a good team and whenever you come here, if you can get out of here with a point it is always a positive. The disappointment is because we could have played better when we were a man up.
