COLORADO RAPIDS 1, HOUSTON DYNAMO 0
COLORADO RAPIDS HEAD COACH FERNANDO CLAVIJO
On the game:
"It was a physical game. We knew that's how it was going to be. That is how Houston plays. They are very direct and they battle, they battle for every ball. I think we made them pay when it counted and we defended well. We didn't allow them to use the weapons. They are a very good team and they have a lot of very good players. It was a hard game. Overall I'm very satisfied that we got the points against a direct rival in our Conference."
On defending Brian Ching:
"He scored four goals in the first game of the year. We needed to do a much better job. He is physical and they play to his strengths. They play a lot of long balls to him, he is very good at covering the ball and people run off him very well. We were able to manage some of those runs and not allow him to pass it to other players."
On the play of Rapids:
"I think it was a total team effort, from Thiago (Martins) to Joe (Cannon). Everyone played outstanding and we minimized our mistakes. We were able to win and it was a total team effort."
On the play of Joe Cannon:
"That's why, for me, Joe is the best goalkeeper in the league. He stepped up and made the saves when he needed to. For me it was not a surprise. It is expected from him all of the time. That's why we made a commitment as a team to keep him for good."
COLORADO RAPIDS MIDFIELDER DANIEL WASSON
On starting for the first time:
"It was just awesome. I had a lot of friends from Colorado Springs come up and my brother from Tulsa drove all the way here. I got a lot of good advice from the older players just to play simple in the beginning, just so I can get all the nerves out and make easy passes from the start to get myself into the game. I thought I did that pretty well. I made a couple of turnovers early but I felt overall I did really well. Kyle (Beckerman) was a steady influence in there and Pablo (Mastroeni) was always talking to me. Clint (Mathis) was also helping me out. A lot of veterans put me under their wing."
COLORADO RAPIDS FORWARD NICOLAS HERNANDEZ
On his goal:
"It was a beautiful goal. It is the personal favorite of all the goals I have scored (with the Rapids) just because of how the play was developed and how the ball was moved by the whole team and the way I finished it and the importance of the rival and three points. Usually a forward would look for the far post to score that goal, but the way the play developed I had it right there and I knew I had to hit it right away. So I picked out the near post and tried to position it as far away from the goalkeeper. Luckily enough it went to a place where the goalie couldn't keep it out of the net."
HOUSTON DYNAMO HEAD COACH DOMINIC KINEAR
On the game:
"We got off to a slow start and they got their goal and they made it stand up. I think we could have come out with some goals tonight. We definitely had some good chances in the second half. We got out of the gates slow but finished strong so I was proud of the way the guys finished the game. They kept on going and going until the final whistle. I hope this loss turns into motivation for the guys to get back to winning again."
On scoring chances:
"Sometimes it's luck, or you can say bad luck on the other side or simply execution or sometimes just good goalkeeping. Joe (Cannon) made some good saves tonight but we put the ball in places where he was able to make the save. We are looking forward to Saturday."
On ending the 10-game unbeaten streak:
"Obviously the worst loss is the last loss of the season. We want to be the team that wins at the end of the year, so any loss is tough. I think it was one of those where you try, but with a game Saturday you have to put this one behind. Yes you can look at video and analyze it. But we have a game Saturday so we have to prepare for that. We just need to get the guys some rest and ready to go Saturday night."
HOUSTON DYNAMO MIDFIELDER BRAD DAVIS
On the game:
"It's tough. It took us 20 minutes to get started into the game and in that time we ended up giving up a goal. I think we gave up one shot on goal and it was the one that ended up going in. We had a bunch of chances tonight and it feels like our luck has run out. I hit the crossbar twice and we had some other chances in front of goal and we just need to find our rhythm again and start finding the back of the net. Usually teams come into Denver and are usually dead by the end of the game but we were still buzzing around and we created chances until the final whistle was blown. We are creating them but not finishing them."
HOUSTON DYNAMO FORWARD BRIAN CHING
On the game:
"We didn't play well. We didn't finish well. You can't expect to win when you do those things. It started with me up front. I didn't have a good game and it trickled down to a lot of other guys. You can't win when a lot of guys aren't playing their best. I'm just disappointed with the loss. It was a good run. I would rather talk about that. We had 26 regular-season games within our conference unbeaten streak which is fantastic. I don't know if any other team could make that claim."
