SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES HEAD COACH MATIAS ALMEYDA
On the team’s performance:
“Coaches are ultimately responsible for the performance of a team. In this case, we picked the starting 11. Although our performance in Orlando was great, our return to this season has been really bad. To be competitive would mean that defenders, midfielders, and forwards have to play together systemically. Today there was no defender, midfielder, or attacker who played better than another. We are all at fault for this, including me. The time we have to work on this is short and we really have to think about how we can get out of this situation. Ultimately, the only way to get out of this is to give the players confidence, support them, and to develop more strength than what we have shown today.”
On what’s next for the team:
“Right now, we will focus on getting back to San Jose. Today we can’t change anything. I am conscious about the present and conscious of the future. We are in a season where we play every three days with only two days to train. Changes can be minimal as a result.”
On his message to fans:
“Yes, I coach and have been a player before, but I am also a fan. So those who know me know the internal pain I have after I lose, especially the way we have been losing recently. We will work hard to change and to give the players confidence. Nobody likes to lose, especially losing this in this way. The only thing we can do is to work hard on fixing our errors and, again, give the players the confidence they need to arise from this situation.”
SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES FORWARD CHRIS WONDOLOWSKI
On what to tell the fans:
“To be honest, I’m speechless and embarrassed. I want to apologize to our fans, they deserve better, to watch that and endure that for 90 minutes. We have to start from square one. We built up so many valuable morals that we need to implement into our game plan. When the whistle blew, we let all that blow out the window and to be honest, a lot of that is on me, the captain, to make sure we’re ready, to make sure we’re sharp and to be ready for the little things. I think we were lackadaisical on the field. Credit to Seattle, they’re an amazing team. They’re the champions for a reason so all the credit to them. It was embarrassing for us.”
On what the team needs to change in order to improve:
“I think that we need to execute the game plan. That’s the biggest difference. Being close or being near the idea isn’t good enough and I think we harped on it at the beginning of last year. If you don’t have buy-in from 11 guys, then you’re going to get exposed, but if you have 11 that buy into it and execute the game plan as need be, then you get some pretty amazing things. If you play unselfish, it happens, but if you don’t, there’s a fine line between the have and the have-nots, especially in this league. Right now, we’re getting punished, rightfully so, and it’s not good enough all across the board.”
