More after the jump.
Check out these postgame interviews that Nell Enriquez gathered from the 0-0 draw between the Philadelphia Independence and Atlanta Beat. Can you tell Laura del Rio does not have a high opinion of the Atlanta Beat’s style of play?
Lianne Sanderson:
NE:How do you feel about to tonight’s game? You had a PK opportunity.
LS: It’s a bit frustrating. I feel like we had a lot of possession. Obviously me missing the penalty in the first half did’t help. I think if I would have put thataway than I think I could have been a different game because what Atlanta really does is defend. They’re not a bad team but I feel like they’re one of those teams that if you get the first goal against them then you’re gonna get more. Trying to get the first goal against them is the hardest part. And I feel like we created a lot of chances tonight but we just didn’t finish them.
NE: In your opinion what was Philadelphia lacking tonight as a team?
LS: I think our passing. We need to get more consistent. We need to look for each other. But just because we drew the game doesn’t mean it was a complete disaster. We don’t put a lot of pressure on ourselves. Paul has high standards of us and as a team we need to get ourselves together. I think is we put together a couple of good performances with good results. The league schedule is so inconsistent. We have a couple of games then we don’t play for a while. It’s hard to get that consistency. This is only out third home game of the year so before you know it the season is finished because there’s not that many teams. We’re very dissapointed to get the draw, but hopefully next week we go to Buffalo and hopefully get the win.
Laura del Rio:
NE: This is your first game with your former national teammate Veronica Boquete, she’s only been here for a few days. How do you think she performed?
LDR: Well, she still needs some more time to practice with us. She just arrived, as well as, being back from an injury. These were her first few minutes of play and we are looking forward to her becoming a bigger part of the team and following our rhythm.
NE: What happened out on the field tonight?
LDR: Well, in my opinion tonight one team wanted to play soccer and the other just wanted to play defense the whole time and kick balls out. The sad part is that we were not able to take advantage of the first half and later in the second half we just weren’t able to finish up top.
NE: So Atlanta’s defense was hard to beat tonight.
LDR: When you defend with eight on the back and have two up front. Well, it’s not that you have a great defense when you stack people in the back it’s difficult to have a chance to score.
NE: The season is almost half way through. What needs to happen with the team in order to win this championship?
LDR: First thing we need to play better than we did today and we need to finish those opportunities even if there are only a few. Also, take a look at some of our first games where we were playing much better ending with much better results unlike these last few games where we have not been so lucky.
Christina DiMartino
NE: You created great chances tonight. A lot of speed. Can you talk a little bit about thst and how you work with players up top?
CDM: I just think as a unit we keep our diamond in the midfield and our two up front – we try to keep our triangle and give the ball laid off. Try to get a lot of possession and send each other up. We try to find the width. I think we did a good job of finding each other. The ball just wasn’t going in the net. We did a good job of creating chances. Laying it off. Keeping those combinations. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t get a goal off any of them.
NE: Do you think anything was off today?
CDM: I think Atlanta is a great team. They did well in the back line. I think we just didn’t finish. The chances were there. We had clear opportunities we just couldn’t find the back of the net.
Lori Chalupny
NE: Can you talk about your defense tonight, as well as, the game over all.
LC: I’m really happy with the that way we played. Defensively we were really organized. Our back line did a great job of holding they’re line and we were able to catch them offsides a couple of times and we worked on our midfield defense a lot this past week and I thought that really helped just kind of get us all in the same page. We’re focusing on getting behind the ball right away. I thought it was really great team defense which also gives you a chance to play on offense a little bit.
NE: Is offense something you’ll be focusing on more now?
LC: Yea. I think with any team the defense comes first and you kinda work on the offense as the season goes a long. I think this was a good performance offensively for ninety minutes. I thought we strung a good ninety minute performance together. Other games we’ve had moments of brilliance but I thought in this game we were pretty consistent which was nice. I’d like to score some goals and create a couple more opportunities next game but we just need to improve on this performance.
Julianne Sitch
NE: Let’s chat about the overall results for tonight.
JS: I think that our defense did phenomenal and I think Whit (Whitworth) had some awesome saves like the penalty kick. I think our defense worked well together tonight. Very strong and hard for ninety minutes.
Keeley Dowling:
NE: Can you talk about your and your team’s performance and how you went up against the Philadelphia Independence tonight?
KD: I think we played well. We had a good week of training and for us to get a shot out, specially with a PK, is really good for us. For this young bunch. We are gonna take a point on the road and gain some momentum from this on into next week. We’ll be at home so it’ll be exciting to play in front of our fans.
