Sacha Kljestan

Sacha KljestanOn Jesse saying the season was a success:I would agree that the team grew over the course of the year and that we’ve set in motion some good building blocks for the future, especially for next season if we can keep the core group together and a lot of the young guys that got a lot of major minutes this year. I think from a trophy stand point, no the season is not a success. We got close in the Open Cup, unfortunately we didn’t win. I think that was a good run and will also build a lot of experience for the future. A lot of great memories, a lot of great moments but overall when you don’t win, and you have the desire or the goals to be a champion then of course it’s not successful when you don’t win.On Aaron Long:I think his growth was really good. I think we saw a couple years ago when he came into preseason that he’s got a lot of tools. I think over the course of the year, one of the more consistent central defenders in the entre league so for his first year in MLS I think he made tremendous strides. I was a bit disappointed not to see him brought into the national team in this game I think he deserves a chance to be there looking at the rest of the roster. I’m hoping he gets called into January camp, I think he’s deserved it. I don’t know if there will be a January camp but if there is, I hope he’s there. He’s got all of the physical tools I think you can see when he goes up against some of the best players in the league, he can shut them down. He’s a very good one on one defender. He never loses his battles, he’s obviously very fast and very strong. He’s got all of the tools to be a very good center back and I hope he can translate that to the national team.On his first year as captain:I think the term captain or the guy who wears the armband gets talked about a lot, when in actuality I feel like there’s more than one captain on the team. I feel like I’ve been a captain of this team for three years, not just this season. For me I don’t think much changed, I’m asked to speak a lot more now when before I spoke but not every game. Like I said for three years I felt like the leader of this team. Alongside myself this year, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Luis Robles are in my opinion the three captains of the team. I feel like every year of my however 12, 13 years I’ve learned something along the way. This year, I know that just in tough moments the guys are going to look to me to not only talk, but lead by actions. But that’s how I’ve been for my entire career. Overall, I think as the captain of the team this year, it was fine. There’s always things to learn, I’m sure I’ll get better next year.On growing pains and expectations for next year:I do think so. I think a big part of our team that we missed this year was Aurelien Collin. We missed him for basically the entire season and you see all the success that we’ve had in the games that he plays, the statistics show that. Hopefully having a healthy Danny Royer for the entire season, I think we have a very strong squad. If you add Mike Grella back in next year, hopefully healthy, that’s almost like signing a new player again getting a good attacking player that you can count on for hopefully 10 goals and 10 assists or something like that Mike can bring to the team. The sky is the limit, very excited.On the team getting younger and remaining at the club as a veteran:Yeah. I like being here, it’s been a very good three-year period for my career and I think also for the club. Ultimately, we’ve played for nine trophies in the past three years and we’ve only won one. We got to an Open Cup final and another one and almost got there, but we didn’t. I think overall our home record, the way that we play here, the entertaining style of play that we have, I feel like we score a lot of goals and guys like Bradley Wright-Phillips, Luis Robles and myself have very successful parts of our career here in the last three years. I really enjoy being here and I hope that we can continue this thing.On playoff games at Red Bull Arena:I think the pressure has found its way into different players during the playoffs, especially when we play at home. It’s no one’s fault really, it’s that everyone wants it so bad. Everyone wants to be the first group of guys to win the MLS Cup for this club, everyone wants it so bad.Sometimes you want is so bad that I think it drains you in a way. And of course we have a fan base that’s like I’ve said before, long suffering and they want it just as bad as we do. When we play at home, I think that pressure has gotten to different players at different moments. It has affected us on the field, we play a little tight and we don’t play with that freedom that we play in the regular season where we know we’re just going to dominate almost every game we play here. Every play matters, if you get an early chance and you miss it and they go down they get another chance and they score it’s like this whole series is now tilted. Now you’re playing behind the eight ball and yeah, we have to find a way to deal with it as every team does. It will be interesting and I hope that we can get over that feeling and move on and bring that MLS Cup here that we want so badly.Do you think that’s why you didn’t win anything this year?I think the first half of the first leg against Toronto was just not us and we felt it. Fortunately, we got into half time 1-1 and then the second half I think we put out a pretty good performance. (Sebastian) Giovinco does his thing on the free kick and then ultimately we fail. In the Open Cup, I thought we had a great run. Sometimes playing on the road this season at least, the pressure was off us a little bit. We were able to just go after things and you can see that ultimately in one of our best games of the season is Chicago away in the playoffs. We played free, so we’ve got to find a way to harness all of our positive energy that we want so badly to win and be able to do that while we’re playing at home in the playoffs ultimately because that’s how we’re going to reach the MLS Cup.