Late goal caps Toronto FC victory over Real Salt Lake

Aron Winter- Head Coach & Technical Director, Toronto FC

A bit of a tactical tinkering today; talk about that and how everything worked out.

We are always playing 4-3-3 but changed for the rest of the game. The thing that I want in the future when rebuilding in the end is when an opponent is playing like Real Salt Lake is that you can play also 3-4-3 like we did today and I have to give a big compliment to the team because we have done very well. If you watched the whole game and the possession we had with the ball, against a very good opponent, everyone is forgetting that Salt Lake is good. I think that is a big compliment for the guys that you are watching also that every game there is progression and improvement.

Can you comment on the performance of Milos Kocic?

The whole team, everybody, also the subs a big compliment including Milos, of course, they have all done very well. You saw in the games against Real Esteli we have also done very well and today of course in a different league. A big compliment for him. The moments he had to come out of the box he did very well and it is not easy when you play only two games until now. A big complement for everybody, also for the guys that came in, also for all the young guys. I’m happy that finally the way we played resulted in a victory.

Do you plan Keep Torsten Frings back there (Defence)?

It depends how the opponent is playing, today we had to think a lot about should we play with 4 defenders or should we play with 3 defenders; 2 markers and a free man. At the end we made the choice because it was the best choice at the moment for the players that we had.

Milos Kocic- Goalkeeper, Toronto FC

Talk about that save on Johnson (Will) in stoppage time.

That’s why I’m there, to stop the shots, right, and help the team perform. The team had a great game and I stood well there for them as well to help them get the 3 points and I think its not my performance, it’s a team performance.

How was the communication with the defenders in front of you because they seem to have made it pretty easy for you?

Of course, yeah exactly. Having a guy like Torsten (Torsten Frings), an experienced guy leading the defense is unbelievable. I am very fortunate to have a player like that especially with Iro (Andy Iro) a very physical guy. All the guys did a great job and I don’t want to say one name, two names, but I think the collective effort was great.

Julian de Guzman- Midfielder, Toronto FC

Commenting on 3-4-3 formation

We also knew coming into this game we knew Real Salt Lake was one of the better teams probably the best team in the league that plays good football with a diamond in the middle and two guys up front. Our approach was to have three guys in the center covering the two, three against two in the back. This allowed Stinson and Borman to put pressure on their full backs whenever they do overlap because they are a team that likes to bring numbers forward. Then we had Plata (Joao Plate) and Peri (Peri Marosevic) who are normally wingers but this time were more tucked in the middle in the midfield. It was pretty much man to man throughout the midfield and everyone had to stay on top of that.

Jason Kreis – Head Coach, Real Salt Lake

Thoughts on today’s game..

Soccer is a very cruel game, that’s what I walk away from this game and think to myself, this is a cruel game sometimes. I think that we did enough tonight, certainly to pick up a draw, and on a different night we walk away from here with all three points. If we score some of those chances that we had tonight things look completely different. The goal
that was scored was very flukly one as well so all-in-all we just couldn’t get the bounces tonight that I feel we needed to get.

Is it difficult to scout a team that has made so many personnel changes over the last little whilte?

They haven’t changed anything from their last two matches. We looked at the DC match and we evaluate that and go over that, show our players that formation and Mr. Winter threw us for a little surprise tonight as he came out in a 3-4-3 and I think tactically that caused us a few problems for us in the first half but at half time we talked about, and I think we sorted it out and, in my opinion again, controlled the match.

Will Johnson- Midfielder, Real Salt Lake

Thoughts on tonight’s game…

We were just extremely unlucky. As far as chances go I think it was pretty one-sided. But if you don’t put your chances away you are always leave yourself liable for a lucky goal and that’s what happened.

Your thoughts on the new look TFC team?

They’re improving. It’s hard to say, I think we were pretty much the better team tonight. It will be interesting to see how they do in the Champions League and in the rest of the season. Hopefully they rebuild. These fans deserve a good team, they support this team, they’ve supported this team a lot so they deserve a good team. Hopefully those guys can go in the right direction and the results will speak for themselves.

Kyle Beckerman – Midfielder, Real Salt Lake

Your take on today’s game?

Yeah, I mean we played some good soccer, made some good plays and created some good chances but we just couldn’t score tonight.

Was there any fatigue after playing the full 90 minutes in the USA friendly earlier this week?

Yeah a little bit but I just wanted to push through. I’ve got another week before the next game so I didn’t really thing about it.

How does this Toronto team compare to the team that you last played earlier in the year?

I thought that they were better than the last time that we played them. I think that our lack of finishing our plays kept them in the game. That’s the name of the game, if you don’t score you can’t change the game. We just missed our chances.

Scoring Summary: 

TOR — Joao Plata 3 (Matt Stinson 1) 77 

Toronto FC — Milos Kocic, Richard Eckersley, Torsten Frings, Andy Iro (Ty Harden 64), Danleigh Borman, Matt Stinson (Doneil Henry 78), Julian de Guzman, Eric Avila, Peri Marosevic, Danny Koevermans (Javier Martina 74), Joao Plata. 

Substitutes Not Used: Terry Dunfield, Ashtone Morgan, Mikael Yourassowsky, Stefan Frei. 

Real Salt Lake — Nick Rimando, Chris Wingert (Tony Beltran 32), Chris Schuler, Nat Borchers, Robbie Russell (Paulo Araujo Jr. 81), Luis Gil, Andy Williams (Arturo Alvarez 76), Kyle Beckerman, Will Johnson, Alvaro Saborio, Fabian Espindola. 

Substitutes Not Used: Jean Alexandre, Rauwshan McKenzie, Collen Warner, Kyle Reynish. 

Misconduct Summary: 

RSL — Will Johnson (caution; Reckless Tackle) 54 
RSL — Andy Williams (caution; Reckless Foul) 62 

Referee: Mark Kadlecik 
Referee’s Assistants: James Conlee; Colin Arblaster 
4th Official: Sorin Stoica 
Attendance: 21,644