Presented by:
MINNESOTA UNITED HEAD COACH ADRIAN HEATH
On if it feels like one point earned on the road …
“Yeah. You know, [Tyler Miller] made a couple of big saves at the end. But, before that, I thought we controlled the possession for long periods of the game. Certainly something that I thought we deserved. They’ll probably think that they deserved all three with the opportunities they had late on, but, when you consider the amount of ball we had, I’m pleased. And, it’s, what? Seven points out of nine? We’re trending in the right direction.”
On if he could have imagined Niko Hansen being the left-sided attacker making his debut tonight instead of that being Franco Fragapane …
“Well, obviously we were displeased that we didn’t get the paperwork for Franco [Fragapane]. But, you know, I think we saw enough of Niko [Hansen] preseason that he is a threat. And he has got a goal in him. Tonight, he’ll be better for that because he’s worked really hard to get his fitness back in the last few weeks.”
On where Franco Fragapane’s paperwork was held up …
“It’s their end. We’re just waiting for it. All day Thursday, Friday, the people at the league were inundating the Argentinian Football Association with calls and faxes, emails, everything. Unfortunately, apparently there’s a pandemic down there that’s really bad. Nobody is working. So, it was one of them things. Disappointing, but, obviously he will be available for the next game. For sure.”
On Adrien Hunou’s debut …
“As I said, it’s seven and a half weeks, I think, since he last played. So he’ll be a lot better for that. He’ll get sharper, he’ll get his legs back under him over the next couple of weeks. We’ve started to do some serious conditioning with him. Nice little touches. Nice little link up play. But it’s still obviously very, very early for the guy.”
On the two big saves Tyler Miller made in the last few minutes of regulation …
“Big saves. Certainly the first one, we were right behind it. Top drawer saves, but, he’s a top drawer goalkeeper and we have to expect him to make them saves. That’s why he’s so highly thought of here.”
On the midfield flow without Emanuel Reynoso, but with Jacori Hayes and what was working and what wasn’t …
“I thought there was… we always had the extra body in there. I thought at times in the first half, we didn’t pass the ball quick enough. Something we spoke about. I thought we could have drove on a little bit more than we did. But, no, I’d have probably settled for a point before the game, because I know how difficult it is normally, playing here. So, at the end of the day, as I say, seven points out of nine, and we’ll move on, go into the break and get ourselves ready for another tough one in Dallas.”
On how much he noticed Bakaye Dibassy’s presence back on the field …
“Big difference. We haven’t lost. If you look at our record since he’s been with us, there are only too many games where he played.”
On what happened on the RSL goal, if it was zone marketing, if his side was caught flat -ooted …
“I’ll have to see it again. But, obviously, the first rule of any defending: You don’t turn off. You don’t turn your back to the game. So, we’ve gone from a relatively dangerous position to a really dangerous position and we know that [Aaron] Herrera has got quality. If you give people an opportunity to put the ball in the box, eventually. We spoke about [Damir] Kreilach before the game. He’s a real threat. Big size. Good timing. So, you know, it was a difficult start for us, for sure.”
On what he saw in Aziel Jackson’s debut …
“He didn’t go on. We wanted him. We were going to put him on, but we scored and then I felt like we could keep the same. But, the kid has been training really, really well. So, that would have been a little bit of payback for the hard work he’s been putting in for sure.”
On the schedule for the international players …
“They’ll travel back with us, then they’ll make a move tomorrow.”
On what impressed him with Niko Hansen in preseason …
“He’s quick. He’s direct. A really good turn of pace. As I said on the pitch after the game, look at the sort of schedule when it takes off. We’ve got Saturday, Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday. The next few games are going to come thick and fast. He’s going to be used, for sure, down the stretch.”
On Franco Fragapane and if his paperwork issues were club related or Argentina Football Association related, similar to Austin’s issues …
“This has to do with the federation. We waited for something to be sent back to us. That’s all. It seems so trivial. We dealt with the French authority and it was done in an hour, the day we put it in. So, obviously, I think the fact that they’re in such a bad way with the pandemic, there’s nobody in the main office, people working from home, it’s probably getting a little bit lost in translation, maybe, it’s miscommunication, whatever. Hopefully, well, I don’t say hopefully, it will be done next time for sure.”
On if Niko Hansen was out for the beginning of the season with a thigh injury or if there were other injuries or circumstances …
“No, it was the same one. Hilary [Obert] and the medical people, you know, it took a while for it to heal. But, he’s fully fit now and we’ll be able to get some work into him in the next couple of weeks. We’ll sharpen him up a little bit.”
MINNESOTA UNITED MIDFIELDER NIKO HANSEN
On his goal late in the game…
“Right place, right time. I think I found myself in a good spot right there. Played it off of Chase [Gasper] and they weren’t really marking on the front post so I just went for it. It was a little bit ahead of me but, like I said, right place, right time.”
On where the ball hit him…
“It came on my hip, and it snuck in.”
On whether he has a goal in him every night…
“Pretty much. Yeah, so far.”
On his thigh injury that kept him out until now…
“Basically, I kind of had to. This is something I talked about with our PT [Hilary Obert], she’s dealt with them before and she did an amazing job with it. It was one of those that was tough mentally, as I was going into training every day, almost with no issues. But it’s one that can reoccur and I didn’t want to be out longer than I needed to be, for the rest of the season. It was a little bit of being patient and staying mentally with it. I think it worked out for good tonight.”
On the feedback from the team postgame after his equalizer…
“They’re happy for me. I’ve been in training this week and they’ve been telling me they’re excited to get me back. It’s a goal though, for sure, I feel the support from everybody. We keep moving, we’ve got some work to do.”
On the point being well earned…
“We should have got three points. We had other opportunities to be real dangerous but we’ll take the one point for now and continue to grow. We’ve these three games unbeaten now so keep this momentum going into this break and move forward.”
On how he sees the team after seven games in…
“We’ve dealt with a lot. Guys coming in, injuries – there’s been quite a bit of adversity that we’ve had to deal with this year. We’ve done as much as we can. Watching from the outside, we just needed to keep being dangerous, keep being an attacking group, which we have. We have some amazing talent on this team to do those things so we just need to get together. And now we have these next three weeks to really get everybody back in, to get everybody on the same page. It’s a really, really dangerous group when you look at it at training, look at it on paper. We got some firepower moving forward.”
On the break coming up…
“It’s not ideal but it’s nice to have some little breaks as far as, like I said, we’ve got some guys coming in late, some guys dealing with knocks here and there. It gives us a little bit of a reset to kind of reanalyze and get back to continuing this streak. We’re three, like I said, unbeaten. I think it’s going to give us more momentum.”
On what he’s seen from Adrien Hunou and Franco Fragapane in this last week…
“They’ve both come in and you can tell that they have experience playing at a high level. Calm on the ball, look to connect and go forward. That’s something that we need to continue to do, go forward and look to connect together and get in behind lines. I think those guys will add to that element, I think I add to that element as well. I think it brings a different firepower to our team.”
On what was appealing about coming to Minnesota…
“For me personally, I wanted to come and start. I came in wanting to be the guy that makes a difference. This is my fifth year in the league now and I’m ready to go. My mindset, I’ve been working with people, I’ve been working with my own mindset and stuff so it was a great change for me, great change of scenery. Trust from the coaching staff, trust in players that I previously know of and spoken to. It comes in and really motivates me to help the team.”
On what he means about working with his own mindset…
“I’ve worked with a therapist a little bit. I’ve had some previous injury depression and things like that and this is something I don’t mind talking about. I’ve worked with a therapist the last six, seven weeks just to get myself ready to go again and not come in and be down on myself about this. You could see it as a setback but I talk about gratitude and moving forward and how I’ve been able to watch the game and get stronger in other areas of my game. It’s really brought me, like I said, my mentality, mindset, and wanting to be a winner and I think this team has that mentality.”
On whether he was working with a sports psychologist…
“Yes, sir.”
On what else besides gratitude did he work on with the sports psychologist…
“We worked on everything from positivity, gratitude – it’s a lot to talk about from six weeks of work. Just to sum it all up, gratitude is one big word that comes to me because it’s tough at times. Moving forward, it’s all about how you interact with your own self in training, outside of training, and especially in the game. If you’re already telling yourself that, in a negative way, you’re already telling yourself that you can’t do it, then you’re not going to be able to do it. I tell myself every day I’m the best and I’m going to go be the best and I think that helps the team. And I want everybody on the team to say that for themselves.”
On what he saw from Tyler Miller’s performance tonight…
“He helped us stay in the game there. He made an amazing save to keep us in and that’s what he’s there for, that’s what he’s shown time and time again in training as well. Like I said, it was a team win. I might have scored the goal but something like that, always helps us stay in it.”
