Following the wild 2-2 draw at Civic Park against Ballard FC on Friday night, acting Head Coach Conner Cappelletti and goalkeeper Albert Escuin shared their thoughts on the game.
Coach Conner Cappelletti
General thoughts on the match…
“Well, according to my watch the game was over stoppage time wise. Tommy scored with a minute left and the game was over when the ball got cleared, cleared, cleared, cleared, cleared it up over here before the cross even happened. Had to make a play. Good on Albert for saving the PK. As the head coach, Albert hasn’t been scored on with a PK for me, but you got to see the game out. So I’ll play devil’s advocate with our team. I’ll go back and say hey, you know, there’s a lot in the game that we still could have done a lot better at times with keeping the ball more when we needed to or getting more out of certain attacks. But I’m proud of the boys in what they did and what we worked on.”
On what the team learned…
“Keeping the ball when needed to. Doesn’t have to be 47 passes. I tell the boys, ‘Maybe it’s two, three, four, five passes’ and then it allows teammates to get in position and then we can generate some sort of attack. We did chase a little bit more defensively and did a lot of work there; it tires guys out. Maybe we need that little extra and from the attackers to kind of hold the ball. I thought we could have just at least connected a couple more passes in possession to give us a better chance of generating an attack and again, that extra minute on the ball — maybe it takes that extra minute out of the game, right?”
On the game plan coming in…
“We didn’t want to defend that much, but I told them they’re a good team and they kept the ball well. They like to play the big ball and spread us out and they did a good job of it. We defended a little more than I wanted to, but again, the goal is to frustrate them because we knew they were going to serve the ball and left them out. Try to take some key players out of the game. So again, not what we wanted, in terms of sitting back more, but you have to adjust to the game.”
On a point feeling like revenge…
“I mean, yes and no. I would even tell my youth teams: You want a team, if they get a result, coming off your field celebrating and being happy because they know they just escaped. So that’s kind of a victory because they know they escaped with something. They’re definitely going to be happy with the point. I’d be happy with an away point, too, don’t get me wrong. We’re unbeaten in four, but it feels like a loss.”
Goalkeeper Albert Escuin
General thoughts on the match…
“Honestly, we didn’t defend like we were supposed to defend when you’re two-one up and there’s only two minutes left — and that’s on us, you know? Then it was weird — I’m not gonna get into the referee calling one thing and the sideline completely changing it — but it happened, you know? We just didn’t deal with it. It’s the same because the boys did an amazing job today. I think we should have for sure got the three points, but it is what it is.”
On LUFC scoring the first goal…
“[It meant] so much. We talked many times how hard it is in this league to play [from behind]. So they gave us a lot and I feel like we monitored things pretty well. We have to get better at time management, but I always tell the guys, ‘We just have to get 1% better every day.’ I think the improvement that we’ve seen has been enormous. So we just gotta keep it up.”
On the team’s goals moving forward…
“Get three points next week. Like I said, just get 1% better every day. 1% better today would have been to get the rebound, maybe not even give that corner, maybe even press a little bit there and get a throw-in instead of a corner kick. But you know, I’m pretty happy with the guys and [we need to] just keep working.”