I can’t fault the team. Great character, hit the cross bar, we had to try to go at them a little bit with ten men and put them on their heels the last ten minutes. A typical US-Mexico game with some fireworks a little bit of flair and two teams that go after each other.
Do you feel like you learned a lot from your team?
Yeah I did which is always good and that’s the most important thing. We’re never happy that we lose but I found out a little bit about in these games you find out about character and resilience of players and willingness to sacrifice and push the threshold of pain so to speak. All the little things that are important.
Do you expect to rotate the squad tomorrow?
We’ll play nine new guys tomorrow. I want to give everyone an opportunity. As I said we don’t like to lose but right now results are secondary where we’re at in our phase of preparation. We’re trying to figure out which guys can play and which can’t and who are our best 20 players eventually to take us through qualifying.
On the red card, there are situations in soccer where the referee can issue a red card but he doesn’t have to, is that what that play comes down to?
Yeah, I think so. I mean it changes really the course of the game. I don’t even think it’s a PK, it’s probably outside of the box. There was some contact obviously with both players in an awkward position…you’ve got to use a little common sense I think. You put the yellow and give them the PK and nobody would complain.
Talk about Francisco’s performance a bit
Francisco(Navas Cobo)’s an interesting guy obviously. Now with the first team of Houston gets in a very good training environment and not necessarily a playing environment because we don’t have a reserve league but you can tell that he’s got some talent. He needs to learn when to dribble and when to combine maybe those are areas where he can still get better. I love his work rate today, he worked extremely hard. Dominic Kinnear says he’s a kid that will only get better which he will….I’m pretty satisfied with his performance.
Are you looking for leadership out Dillon Powers because he’s one of the holdovers from this cycle?
Yeah him and Gale(Agbossoumonde) who obviously didn’t get released from Braga which is good and bad you like to have him here on the other hand he’s playing well obviously. That’s the two guys who played in the previous U20 world cup, both got minutes there. Dillon was the captain today for a reason and I think that he showed today that he by example can lead. I think he’ll get a little verbal as well which is an area he excels in. What an unbelievable game under the circumstances.
Are you interested to see Gyau tomorrow with Vancouver?
Yeah that’s always good. There’s guys in this tournament, one guy at Tigres who’s a Mexican-American, Monterrey’s got one or two as well. Gyau and Renken, though Renken’s still injured but Gyau is there so it’s great exercise to see him on the other side of the ball and see if he’s a guy we need to look at.
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