Minnesota United dropped three on the road this past Saturday in a hard-fought effort against the top team in the East. The club came out swinging, scoring two come-from-behind goals before Toronto finished its third of the night near the 80th minute to take three points from the night. Below is what was said following the match.
Head Coach Adrian Heath
On the effort of the boys against Toronto:
I’m a little bit disappointed. I don’t think we showed enough belief at times that we could cause some trouble. It took us fifteen minutes to get our football, but once we did, we started to play the way we can and I thought we caused them a lot of problems. We had two or three great chances as well, so pleased with a lot of the aspects of the performance but disappointed with the result obviously.
On the whether or not the resilience of the team fighting back is a good sign:
Yes it is, most importantly that they are believing in what we are trying to do. The last few weeks they are starting to believe in what we are trying to do. I think the most important thing, from our point of view, is that we are getting better. We have come to the best team I think, I said before the game that Greg (Vanney) is doing a great job, they are incredibly well organized, well coached team so for us to put this type of performance in from where we were a couple of weeks ago it bodes well for us moving forward.
On conceding three goals:
I will have to see the penalty again, I thought it was a rash challenge anyway, he doesn’t need to do it. And at the end it was a bit end-to-end, we got caught a couple times but on the whole, I thought we handled them quite well. In general, obviously with (Sebastian) Giovinco and at the end with (Jozy) Altidore and (Tosaint) Ricketts, they’ve got good players. I’ll have to watch the game again and to see where we are. We’re not going to win a lot of games conceding three, but at least as well we did have a threat going forward.
Goal scorer Kevin Molino
On the match vs. Toronto:
A lot of positives, I think we had more than enough to win. We had a lot of chances but most important, when you look at the first few games of the season to now, we are developing as a club and that is great positive to take back home for our home game. But most important, there were times that we shoot ourselves in the foot, that is a learning process and that is why you play the beautiful game for, it’s a learning process.
On scoring a brace:
Yeah, but most important the game is a team sport and we all want to go home happy together collectively with three points. The two goals are good to keep my confidence up and I look forward to the next game against the LA Galaxy.
Defender Brent Kallman
On the match vs. Toronto:
I thought we performed pretty well as a team but mental errors came back and bit us, I know I had more than one myself. There are things that we can take from the game but ultimately we’re going to be disappointed because we definitely could have come away with points and we didn’t so we’ve got to learn from it, move on, and not repeat those same mistakes going forward.
On the team’s defensive play:
It’s going to be hard to come away with points, or to get a win, if you give up so many goals. Again, it just goes back to the mental errors, poor decision making defending around the box. The second goal, it’s going away from the goal, it’s not a dangerous position I should just stay on my feet instead of giving away a foul which leads to a goal so, it’s just things like that we’ll learn from it, we’ll move on.
On the final goal for Toronto:
That was a bit of luck to be honest. We defended it well, we had it won, it gets cleared off somebody and pops right into [Jozy Altidore’s] feet. Then he puts up a good cross for [Tosaint] Ricketts who can jump out of the gym so it was a bit unlucky on the last one but it just goes back to, you put yourself in those positions, so we can do better.
