San Jose bonus quotes: Quakes vs. Crew

Quakes head coach Frank Yallop:

“Disappointing to lose the match. You score two at home, which is what we’d talked about all week, we score two goals in the end and end up conceding three.”

“I think Ronnie’s chance at 1-0 was a good chance for us to maybe get a good lead in the game, and maybe we would have gone on to win it, but it wasn’t to be.”

On whether the Quakes’ substitutions hurt the team’s defensive discipline:

“I don’t think so…we were under the kosh before I made the change. I felt that Columbus were coming on to us, getting  a lot of set plays, and I think you try to make a change a to make a difference. It sparked us a little bit. Ryan [Johnson] ended up scoring. Shea [Salinas] didn’t do badly. They’re not at the back, but the defending starts with the whole team.”

“We didn’t play particularly well tonight. It didn’t feel like we played well…It was an unusual game. We stumbled a bit with the ball.”

On the reason for the O’Brien substitution:

“He’s not been training fully the whole time. He’d come out the last time around the 60th minute or so. I felt that putting Gavin up front…and I felt that Ned was playing fine, I felt he could last the game a little bit better than Ronnie.”

On whether the team missed Ryan Cochrane:

“I wouldn’t say the back four were horrendous, but in the end, we conceded three goals, and that’s hard to take. I don’t like to make judgements because I want to look at the tape again, see where the stuff comes from and go from there.”

“I don’t think anyone was really terrific and I don’t think anyone was really bad tonight. Team-wise, we just looked loose.”

Defender Nick Garcia:

“We made Robbie Rogers look very, very good tonight.”

On how Columbus were able to get in behind so easily late in the game: 

“A mental lapse for us, maybe not being as compact from the back line into the midfielders. It gave them more of an opportunity to win some second balls and be a little bit more adventerous. We were a step or two behind closing the ball down, tackling. In turn, it wasn’t just one play, it was a succession of plays where maybe we could have broken it up in the midfield, made a better pass. It was no one individual. It was multiple guys, but hey, we’re a team, we win and we lose together. It was disappointing.”

On how much this hurts the team’s confidence:

“It hurts a little bit. Whether it’s game five, or game 15, or game 45, a loss is a loss. ”

Ronnie O’Brien:

Was this a game you let get away?

“Yeah. We got lucky a couple times. They hit the bar and they came close a couple of times. But then we went up and scored, and at the end of the half we were controlling the game and I thought we were doing pretty well in the first half.

“In the second half we had a couple of chances. I had a chance I should have put away, and then they start controlling the game, they put in a few good balls behind us, they take their chances and they win the game.”

Was fatigue a factor?

“No. I think we’re a pretty fit club. It was just one of those things. Three good passes. Whether we were in bad positions or gave them too much space in the midfield, those are things where we have to do better. You don’t blame individuals. It’s not one individual mistake. As a team we have to do better.”