KANSAS CITY WIZARDS 4, COLUMBUS CREW 0
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS HEAD COACH BOB GANSLER
On the game:
"The guys played extremely well. It was all about focusing for 90 minutes
and commitment for 90 minutes. As I have said before, we have done this, that and the other thing, but today we put together a grandiose first half.
In the second half we said we need a 0-0 mentality and we have to win the
second half as well. It wasn't as pretty as the first half for sure, and we
would have liked to have more exquisite ball possession. The guys have every
right to be proud for playing and extremely good game."
On changing the lineup:
"It is not about the coach rearranging X's on the blackboard; it is about how
the guys address the game. Shavar (Thomas) has worked like a bear in
practice and looked good and Nicky (Garcia) is so versatile he wound up
playing defensive midfield because Columbus was throwing everyone and their
grandmother forward. It was a team thing and we addressed it well. In the
first half we absorbed their initial pressure, we countered well, we
possessed well and got three goals we will be proud of on our postseason highlight reel."
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS MIDFIELDER CHRIS KLEIN
On the game:
"We needed that game. No matter what the score was during the game we needed
to have a 0-0 mentality. Whether it was one-to-nothing, two-to-nothing and
then three-to-nothing at halftime, we came in and talked about increasing
the pressure and playing like it was 0-0 and not a 3-0 lead."
On the team's offensive success:
"I think we have been playing very well offensively the whole year and
tonight it was no different -- not to mention it was a beautiful night on a
beautiful field, we found our seams. When we are doing that we are moving
off the ball and we are going to score goals. I think it was also important
on the other end that we played very, very well from Bo (Oshoniyi) on
forward."
KANSAS CITY WIZARDS FORWARD JOSH WOLFF
On the game:
"I think first and foremost this was a good result for us, going on the
road. It has been a difficult first four or five games just because we have
given away so many points. Tonight we came in with the same mentality and it
came out the right way. We have gotten the first goal in a lot of these games
and we were able to put in another good 30 minutes after that and make it
3-0 at half. We are pretty confident that we can hold on to leads. We
haven't show that much before, but tonight we did and it is something can
give us a little more pride."
COLUMBUS CREW HEAD COACH GREG ANDRULIS
On the game:
"We're not going to point any fingers. We're a tight group and we're going to work through it. We're obviously going through a very difficult patch right now. But we believe in the guys in the locker room and believe we can get the job done.
"It's not the system. Everybody gets caught up in the X's and O's. It's execution, it's doing your job.
"We're obviously leaking a lot of goals, and you're not going to be very successful in any league when you give away three and four goals a game. Until we fix that the rest of it is kind of minutia, to be perfectly blunt.
"It's not one guy. I mean it's not just Jon Busch, it's not one guy. It's a collective team defending, it has to be better. We need a greater commitment on the defensive side of the ball, it's really that simple."
On the substitution of Cornell Glen:
"He was gassed. He's still recovering; he's got a bad groin. But also at that part of the game there was no space behind which is where he's best. So we thought we would get another target guy in there. Clearly, early in the game when there was space behind he was the most dangerous guy on there, but we felt getting another big target guy in there might help up us with all the crosses we got. But at the end of the day that didn't pan out either."
COLUMBUS CREW FORWARD CORNELL GLEN
On the game:
"We should have scored a couple goals in the first. The no call on the penalty was a bit disappointing. Again, I didn't score, so I am a bit disappointed. I should have scored early in the second half to (get) us back in the game."
On what the Crew need to do to improve:
"We need to keep focus, keep working harder. Eventually we are going to score goals and we're going to win. We just need to keep working hard."
On the loss:
"We lost concentration. We started out playing well. The first 10 minutes we were all over them. We just need to keep working hard and forget this game and come out and work hard in practice this week."
COLUMBUS CREW DEFENDER FRANKIE HEJDUK
On the result:
"We need to put that game behind us. We're taking goals too easy, and we're taking in a short amount of time. I think we hang our heads down after one goal like it's over. It is kind of sad, because we have a good team and we know we're good. We're just not clicking -- nothing's working. Everyone is three yards off the play. It's not just one player, it's every single person, the whole team. We have to suck it up as a team, and have a good week of training and put that game behind us."
