Dynamo head coach Ben Olsen post Interview

 

Thoughts on the match:  “I'm not sure yet. I'm going to have to go back to see if that was good, bad, ugly, and I think it was a little bit of everything. It became a track meet again. We came into the game not wanting it to be a track meet. At times we weren't that clean. I didn't think our structure offensively was always perfect in the first half. It led to a kind of a back-and-forth game and neither team really had the killer instinct in the final third tonight. Our transition defending was better than it was against Santos (Laguna). We were more aware of the danger when we did lose the ball, so that was good to keep them off the board. Against a team of that quality, that says a lot about the defensive effort that our group gave. We are pleased to move on and have another crack at this tournament.”

 

How satisfying it is to win another shoot out: “We haven't missed many in the three games. So, it's good. It's a little bit of a coin flip. (GK) Steve (Clark) reads players very well. It’s nice to have a guy like that because you know he's going to grab one.”

 

Thoughts on the slow start in the first half and higher pace in second: “The stats say it was an even game against arguably one of the best Mexican teams in their league, who won it last year. If we struggled a little bit, maybe it's because of the quality that Pachuca brings. I don't care how many players they put that are new. They're all high quality, and then they brought in quality. The stats show it was a pretty even game against a high-level team. They pressed us early, and we went too long. We weren't brave enough to play through the press at times. Overall, against a team like that you're going to have to weather some periods. They’re so risky. They’ve thrown so many numbers at you up high that you have to do well with the ball or else they're going to come back with real numbers. I would say we defended our box really well.”

 

What is the team is getting out of the Leagues Cup: “If you talk to coaches around the league, in this tournament, it was to get out of the group. You do not want three weeks in the summer to train. It's a hard to juggle, emotionally and physically. You would be scrambling for games. But you also do need a little break, so hopefully we don't have that for a while. Hopefully we can keep going. It is nice to get through. Now to have a knockout game, similar to a knockout game that we're going to have, it's good preparation in that way for the U.S. Open Cup match coming up. This is positive, and the fact that we're home. That's a little bit fortunate, but we'll take it, and it’ll be nice to play here. We don't have to do the travel part.”