Seattle Reign FC at Portland Thorns FC Pre-Match Press Conference • Friday, May 10, 2024
Head Coach Laura Harvey and Midfielder Jess Fishlock
Head Coach Laura Harvey
On closing in on her 100th regular season win and how important it is for her to get three points in Portland:
“Honestly, the three points is the most important thing. Going down there is never easy, but obviously they’re always exciting games, games that we always circle on our calendar with it being our rival. So yeah, excited to get down there and build on some of our good performances that we’ve had in the last three games.”
On if she thinks the team needs to work on being more patient with the ball:
“Yeah, definitely, I think that’s really important when you play them.”
On not having Megan Rapinoe for the first time against Portland and how it will impact the environment:
“I don’t think it changes too much. Obviously, we’ve been having to deal without Megan (Rapinoe) for a while now. I think that she epitomizes the Seattle-Portland rivalry. She actually texted me this morning about it, which says a lot about her feelings towards the game, I think. So, her mentality and the rivalry that it is definitely lives on.”
On the team’s fitness and how everyone is doing after Wednesday’s game:
“I mean, we’re beat up and tired and playing with 10 players on Friday, having to put in the defensive shift we did on Wednesday was not easy. So yeah, we’ve got a few last-minute decisions that we’ve got to make going into tomorrow’s game.”
On Maddie Mercado making her NWSL debut on Wednesday and the instructions she gave her before entering the match:
“Honestly, just go in there and be you and be a threat for us, try and get us up the field if you can. She’s been training excellently over the last couple of weeks, so I was glad to get her on the field.”
On Sam Meza and the progress she has been making since getting drafted:
“She’s really close. She’s doing really well. Her and Maddie, I think, have turned the corner. So, excited for both of them to get opportunities moving forward.”
On what the team needs to do to shut the Thorns down and prevent them from scoring early:
“I think being, similar to what I’ve already said, I think pragmatic on the ball, make sure we keep it in the moments that we need to, defensively – not give them spaces. I think Sinc (Thorns forward Christine Sinclair) has been very good for them in the [No.] 9 and honestly sets the Soph’s (Thorns forward Sophia Smith) of the world to find spaces because Sinc is going to come in spaces, as defenders, you don’t really want to come into, so I think solving that early is going to be really important.”
On Laurel Ivory’s evolution as a player:
“I think since being at the club, Laurel has been exceptional in regards to her mentality, how she trains, what she puts on the field every day, how she is as a teammate, all of the above. So, I think she’s been waiting for her opportunity to show what that is outside of the Challenge Cup. It’s no surprise to me. I’ve said this for as long as Laurel and Claudia have been at the club – they are both very, very good, young goalkeepers. We’re very lucky to have both of them. There was always going to be a day where one of them steps up and right now that’s Laurel and I’m very, very happy for her that she’s putting on the performances that we all know she has in her. So, for us, it’s like we haven’t skipped a beat. Obviously, losing what was your number one goalkeeper in Claudia and having someone like Laurel to step in is a fantastic weapon for us in our roster.”
Midfielder Jess Fishlock
On her overall thoughts on the match ahead of the rivalry against Portland:
“I think it’s going to be a big game, obviously. For us, it’s the last game of a three-game week, so it’s going to be a big mental game for us – can we kind of pull ourselves through this, which I’m positive that we can – and it will just be one of those games where, like you said, of course they’re dangerous and so are we, so we have to make sure that we are kind of structured, disciplined, but also able to be creative when we get the ball and not kind of make it into a big transition game, especially with their front line.”
On the defensive performance against Kansas City on Wednesday and if that’s what the team needs to do against Portland:
“I think it’s a defensive performance we want to put on all the time. I think we had similar – even against San Diego and North Carolina, we were really good defensively, a little bit unlucky, but to go 117 minutes against San Diego with 10 players and concede a goal that was a set play, just sets us up for us knowing exactly what we need to do defensively. I think Kansas and Portland are a little bit different attacking-wise, so we’re going to have to be ready for something that’s a little bit different. Yeah, defensively, we need to be as strong as we have been and I think with the ball, we need to be a little bit more pragmatic and a little bit more patient to really then be able to hurt them with the players that we have.”
On Harvey closing in on 100 regular season wins and what makes her such a great coach:
“Where do I start? I think Laura just kind of has a bit of everything – she is tactically unbelievable, understands the game to a very, very, very high level and does a really good job of breaking that down for players to have a really good understanding of their jobs and their role. So from a football perspective, I think she’s one of the best in the world. I think the way that she manages her players and the way that she works as a coach, how personable she is, really makes you want to work for her at a high level as a player – you want to do everything, you want to give everything, you really want to buy in to what she’s saying and what she’s doing. So, on both sides of the game of what you need from a coaching perspective, she just is different. She just is really different and I think that when you get a chance to work with her, you really feel that.”
On having Harvey as a coach and how she influenced her to stay after considering leaving after her first NWSL game in 2013:
“Oh, huge. She was the one that talked me down. I think also just having someone that understands where you’re from and your culture was always a huge part of what she did for me. Obviously, I moved out here, I was kind of on my own and she really kind of helped me and protected me from a lot of stuff. She knew that if I was struggling how to help me. She knew if I was homesick how to help me and then she also knew how to get the best out of me on the field, which she’s still doing now. So, there’s not enough words for me to be able to describe how important and influential Laura has been, not only to my growth as a human but to my growth as a player as well. I’m very thankful for her and I will never really ever forget her, even when I stop playing. I know that she’s a huge part of why my career has been the way that it has.”
On preparing for this rivalry match without Rapinoe for the first time:
“Obviously, I just said that losing Megan is hard, not just on the field but off the field. She was just such a presence in our organization. On the field, you’re never going to replace her, it’s impossible. There’s only one Megan Rapinoe. So, both on the field and off the field, we’ve had to evolve, we’ve had to adapt, we’ve had to change, we’ve had to kind of do all these things to keep us being still super, super competitive, just perhaps in a different way. I think we’re really close to kind of getting to that point. It’s taking a little while, which is completely normal and something that we kind of knew was always going to happen. We’re kind of in a really good spot right now, the group is feeling really good and we’re kind of in this whole process together. Off the field, going into Portland, what’s it going to be like without Megan? I can’t really tell you that because we haven’t played that game yet. Obviously, it’s going to feel different, especially with the way that the crowd used to react to her as well. So, we’re going to have to find a way to kind of bring everything that she brought – all of her energy, all of her character and just find a new way to use that and that’s something that we’re going to obviously kind of have to do as a group, it’s not going to be on one person, we’re going to have to find that fire from somewhere else, but I’m confident that we’re going to be able to do that, especially me, Lu (Lauren Barnes) and Laura, we really have to kind of give maybe a little bit of a history lesson to the rest of the group here to just give them some feelings of exactly what this game means.”
On if Rapinoe has reached out at all about this game:
“I’m not going to give too much away, but you know Pinoe, she knows what she’s doing. We’ll just say that.”
On what she has told Ji So-Yun to expect in this rivalry:
“I think, honestly, it’s not going to be just Ji either – we have a lot of players that are going to come into this game and into this stadium and have probably not really had this type of experience. So yeah, of course we’re going to talk through what it’s going to feel like – how hard it is because it really is a difficult place to go and play, but also how to turn it into a positive. I love playing with their fans, it’s fantastic. I love playing in their stadium. I love turning all of their noise into a positive. So, I think we’re just going to have to talk that through with a couple of these girls here and hopefully they will be able to do what we’ve been able to do for years and just really turn the cauldron into something that works for us and gives us a little bit more energy than kind of it being energy sapping.”
On the rivalry and how special it is:
“I think with these types of games, you need history. So, at the beginning, when it was kind of written out that that’s what this would be, it was kind of early to call it that because there was no history to it, it was kind of like, what can this become? I think over the years, the games that we’ve had, and we’ve had some unbelievable games, both down in Portland and both up here in Seattle, where you now have a lot of history. I was saying that you could do a whole Netflix episode on the games – the different types of games, what they’ve meant, what they’ve meant from a Shield and Championship point of view, what they’ve meant on the field, within the game, the players that were playing in them – I mean there’s just so much that you can write about it and that’s exactly what you’ve wanted. So, it’s kind of our job and Portland’s job to keep that going, you have to keep the history, it’s the only way that these things continue – the history. Everyone talks about all the rivalries, like you said, in Europe and the rivalries are not just present day, they go back two or three decades and I think that’s the beauty of this is, there has been so many times where Portland has been on top or Seattle has been on top and each team has been in a different kind of situation. I think it was two years ago, might have been three, where Portland was playing Gotham and they needed to win to win the Shield and they didn’t and then we go and win and we win the Shield and even though it wasn’t a direct situation, that rivalry was still present. Even from their post-match comments of that game, it was about us. So, that is what makes it so special is, that’s the history of this game. So, we have to keep remembering that because, like I said, what makes a rivalry so special is, we talk about the present game itself, but it’s the history that surrounds everything that makes it what it is.”
On the growth of the support of the team and the impact it has on the players in these big games:
“Yeah, it’s huge. That goes into what I just said, that’s the history of it – you start off small and then you grow into something that is much bigger and it says a lot about where this league is, too, that you have such a following fan base that are able to travel, it’s hard to do that in this country. So, being able to have our fans at that game and a lot of them will be huge for us and it will be nice for us. But like I said, that just comes down to the history of what this game is and being able to be a traveling fan. It’s not easy to be a traveling fan in this league. So, that’s what kind of makes this all so special and we can’t wait to see our fans down there and thank them for traveling down and supporting us on the road. That will give us some extra energy, I have no doubt.”