Quakes vs. Dynamo bonus quotes

Quakes head coach Frank Yallop:

Extra satisfaction in beating Houston?

Not really no. You just want to get three points in this league. Obviously, we’re playing a good team in Houston, it’s always good to get a win against a team like that, but no, it wasn’t any different than any other game we were trying to get three points out of.

On the play of Ryan Johnson:

He was good. He’s raw and rough and a bit of a rough-and-tumbler, but he gets it done. He’s not afraid of getting in there. I think he was the difference tonight to be honest. I thought he helped us play like we kind of want to play. He’s not quite refined, as we say in the game, but his energy and his running and his heart, I think he showed a lot of commitment for the team.

On the Kamara/Guerrero play that hit the post, were you thinking ‘Here we go again?’:

Kind of. I thought we played well in the first half to be honest. I thought it was a good all-around performance. When we were 1-0 up against Columbus, I said, ‘Here we go, we’ve got to make sure we see this game out.’ I felt pretty good, but when chances went begging in the first half, and I wasn’t sure we could lift our game again. But we did, and that was good to see from our guys.

On the favorable bounce on the second goal:

Good bounce for us, which makes a change obviously. But Houston had a chance right at the end which was very close. We sat back too much in the last ten minutes which was…I think we put a lot of energy into the first 80 minutes. I don’t think we had the energy to see the game out correctly, but full credit to our guys. We stuck to it and in the end, we got the three points, which is important.

After Columbus, the end of the game must have made you nervous:

We’ve talked about Columbus a lot. We’ve watched a lot of DVDs, and we’ve talked and we’ve worked in practice, so it was nice to see that the work we’ve done has helped us. Our alertness and our willingness to put our foot and head on the ball in the dangerous areas was there tonight, and I just hope it continues and we can try to get obviously some more points in the next few games we have, which is going to be tough. We’re away from home a lot. In the next seven or eight games, I think we’ve got a lot of away games, but that’s the league and we’ve got to be ready for that.

Does Buck Shaw feel like home now?

Yeah. I felt comfortable tonight, and I think the players did actually. They looked comfortable in the locker room, comfortable in the warm-up, comfortable at the kickoff. We’ve been here now. It does take a little while…I felt like we belonged out there.

Did knowing Houston so well help?

The way Houston plays is no secret. They’re very good at what they do. You can scout, but I didn’t talk much about that in the team talk today. It was more about passion and desire and they are going to come at you. And they did. I think that was important, that we didn’t put our heads down and kept going.

How much confidence will this goal give Kei Kamara?

It helps him. He’s probably going to take off for his qualifying stuff now, which is never easy on a team that’s pretty light like us, but I think we found a pretty good replacement in Ryan Johnson up there. He’ll be playing next week. If [Kamara] does go away, we don’t know exactly yet, we’ll deal with it and hopefully he’ll be in form when comes back.

Houston head coach Dominic Kinnear:

Opening statement:

We didn’t play particularly well. But you can’t point to anything outside of your performance on the field, and we didn’t decide to start playing until after it was 2-0. Then we kind of started feeling the sense of urgency. But I don’t think coming back…the guys were ready and didn’t think too much about [coming back]. There was always going to be buildup, questions about returning, but I don’t think it was a distraction in any way to our preparation.

On the team’s sluggishness in the first half:

I agree with you. There’s really not too much to say. We were a little bit hesitant going for the first and second balls, and when we got it we weren’t clearing our lines quick enough. Therefore we didn’t play particularly well in that first half. Even in the second half, we came out, like I said, we didn’t really start pushing forward until the 70th minute or so…Overall, I don’t think we had a good game tonight.

Where they ready for the play of Ryan Johnson?

We knew it was coming. We talked about him and how he likes to attack the ball, and he’s physical. There were a lot of balls that were dropping. I think we were a little bit hesitant going for the second ball, and they were probably the agressor in that area. We had some breakdowns where we lost the ball and they were breaking forward on us. If we had our shape it wasn’t too bad, but he does attack the ball well and the ball was falling in areas where they were stepping first to it.

Status of Eddie Robinson:

He’s okay. He got elbowed in the hip and had a hard time moving. He walked to the locker room okay, but a little bit bothered by it, but nothing terrible.

On how the loss of Robinson impacted the game:

Any time you lose Eddie, you’re losing a good player first of all, and a good guy in the air. There was a little bit too much room [on the first goal] when the ball fell. And I think on that play we were a little hesitant going for the ball.

On whether the emotions of coming back affected Houston’s play:

No. I wanted to win, and losing this game hurts just like losing another game the week previous. The message before we came here was, ‘These plane rides are paid for for one reason: to come out and play.