New York City FC Post-Game Interview: Soccer Strategy & Team Performance

Coach, Francisco Diaz, Street Punk Soccer

After a pretty decent start to the year, these last two weeks it looks like the team may be floundering a little bit

the offense looked a little flat. It's still a little early in the year, but what's your strategy to kind of right the ship going forward

That's a good question. I think I know what you mean because if you look at the results

getting into this season, we did okay. the performances always bring along new lessons, new questions in development of a team

But what we have to get under control is what I told my guys just now

You can never start a match like we did today. It's impossible. With the level of intensity, aggression in this match

if you see the first few moments going into this game, protection of the ball is a massive aspect

in our development of our team because we have good players but we have to realize when we need to protect and keep possession

and we get punished for it today within a few minutes. So it has to do with time obviously but young players need time but on the other hand we need to perform

So there will be a moment in time where we say, OK, we tried our best but it's not enough

that moment is not there, not by a long mile. So I'm not worried about that

But that is a huge aspect in our game we need to improve. We'll go with Michael and then Anthony right after

Hey, Coach. Michael Allen, Coach Sager. You made two subs in the 40th minutes of the match

Can you talk to your thinking there? Is that something you're sending a message to the players or something more tactically that you're trying to shine

No, it's both. If you take us back to the match you see the shape changes immediately And as I addressed your colleague just now there was no sense of urgency within the team

The way Minnesota plays and played against us is no surprise whatsoever

It's very clear. And they're very good at it. But you need to put the aggression, the intensity and the willingness against it and add your own qualities

And that's what we didn't do. So I changed the shape and changed two players who unfortunately were not able to get to their level today

But as always, and I mentioned it to my boys as well just now, nobody's bigger than the team, including myself

So if I think it's necessary to make a change, I will do it in the benefit of the team

It's slightly unusual to do it before the break, but you could see after the change was made

the sense of urgency, the level of urgency went up immediately. So it was necessary

Anthony? Hey, Coach Anthony Merced, AJM Sports. You spoke a little bit about the change in formation for the second half

It did appear like Minnesota was also willing to just sit back and absorb a lot of pressure

How did you think your team responded to their passive nature and how you guys were far more aggressive

Yeah, yeah. As I said to you guys just now, it was something that we anticipated

It's part of their strategy. Unfortunately, I had a few conversations with the officials on the side to make sure that they are aware of it as well

So the yellow card for their goalkeeper was a little late from my point of view

but you know it's part of their strategy. So you have to avoid that

So the speed of play has to be in our rhythm. And that when I get back to the protection of the ball It a huge part of that So you have to keep them moving so the spaces will open They have to invest way more in running from side to side

and find those open opportunities. You see, when Agu comes on, on the left side

this kid just took him on, 1v1, and he creates a lot of danger

And that was lacking in our play. you have the opportunity with

with Hannes of course so we had a few moments that we could have

gotten back into the game with the new strategy but that's something

that was lacking today Justin? Justin Egan in the outfield, can you talk a little bit

more about the first two goals Minnesota is great on the counter

and on set pieces so it has to be a disappointment to give those up

really early on as I said to you guys just now that was no surprise that's their strategy that's their game

and they're good at it so it's very obvious but if you go back to the first goal you see I think it's

five or six opportunities from our side just to just control the ball and we give it away

each and every time and at that point we give at the final moment we give away a lot of space

behind the defense and there's an open play to get it behind us and yeah unfortunately they caught

us on the back foot and and they were there with the counter-attack but that was no surprise so

that's their quality but also something that's on us because we just lost the ball five six times

in a row the second one is a very simple one because we have a very clear approach in our set

pieces and one of our guys missed his position So the rebound zone or the area at the edge of the 18 yard was open and it wasn supposed to be open and that when you get punished immediately So sometimes you get away with it if you forget something But in this case we didn get away with it

and they punished us severe. Andrew? Hi, I'm Andrew Lee with Hudson River Blue

You've spoken a lot about wanting your team to control the ball, and you guys had 70% possession in this game

but also didn't put a shot on target until like the 76th minute. What do you think is going on in the final third

while you guys are trying to break down teams that's maybe not translating to as many good, clear chances of goal as you'd like

Yeah, that's a good one. It has to do with the speed of play in the final third as well

We were not clinical enough in that area, and we're still not clinical enough in general

But like I addressed Agu just now, those are the moments we need

Getting guys in the 1v1, taking them on, dragging more players to one side so you can bring it back to the middle

and finish up with a shot like Keats tried or movement in the box

But you need to be very, very clinical on the ball, and that's what's lacking in our play

because sometimes there's just an easy loss of possession in that area

and we have to try it all over again. If you add the fact to that, what I told my guys also just now

the focus is on Alonso. He's our top scorer, but if he has a game which is below his standards, it's very hard for us to make the goals

That's why we need to step up. Development of Agu is there, development of Huli is there

Today we brought on Monsev in an early stage. Guys that can score a goal, but need to work really hard for it as well in order to make those goals

Alonso, it's more natural. So it's a combination of both