SEATTLE REIGN FC vs. ORLANDO PRIDE POSTGAME QUOTES
Sunday, May 19, 2024 • Lumen Field • Seattle, WA
Seattle Reign FC Head Coach Laura Harvey
On the team’s ability to work its way back after being down by two goals:
“I just said to the players then, I think when we’re down, we tend to respond very well, but that intensity that we show when we’re down, it has to start with and that, to me, is what winning teams do. I said to the players then, I can’t fault them for when they’re in that attitude and mentality. But what I think we have to solve is, if we play like we did for maybe 60 minutes of the game and turn that into 90, I think the results change. I thought we played well today; I thought we did some good stuff today. We conceded goals again that we gave them and I think that that’s the key piece – we have to show that mentality earlier and we have to show quality. I’ve probably said that word four million times this season and when we have quality, we score goals, we defend well, we limit the opponent. When we lack quality, we concede and we don’t score goals. So, it sounds easy, but those things come in training, those things come every day in regards to how we prepare and how we train, so this isn’t like a matchday thing, it’s that we have to demand that out of ourselves every single day. I thought we had – we’re obviously disappointed with the score line and the result, but I think there were some positives to take out of some of the performance today.”
On Lauren Barnes coming off at halftime:
“Lu (Lauren Barnes) has been sick all week. She’s had the flu. She was touch-and-go whether she was going to play today – says a lot about her as a captain that she wants to stand up for the team. But yeah, in hindsight, it was probably one that we should have kept her out of. She just wasn’t quite right.”
Seattle Reign FC Midfielder Angharad James-Turner and Midfielder Ji So-Yun
On scoring just before halftime and how it shifted the momentum:
James-Turner: “Yeah, I think the momentum changed when the third goal for them got disallowed. I think it lifted us a little bit and gave us the shock that we needed. It’s a shame because we should be starting games in the way that we perform when we go behind. But yeah, I knew Ji, we do that in training a lot – that ball that’s square and a late runner into the box. Yeah, thankfully the deflection – I don’t know if it was going in otherwise, but it changed the game and I think coming in at half with just the one goal hand, I think it gives the energy that we needed and I feel our second half performance was positive. We’ve just got to get better at defending set pieces. But overall, I felt we dominated the game, but it’s just that cutting edge at the minute, we just haven’t got that. So, we’ll keep working and we’ll go again next weekend.”