Orlando City Head Coach James O’Connor
Initial thoughts on the match…
“Very hard fought for both teams. Difficult conditions with the wind and the field. I think a draw is probably a fair result.
On the challenging field conditions…
“You feel from Doménec as the coach. If that’s the field he has to play on every week, you feel for him and his staff and the players. It’s a difficult field for them to have to go and play on. A lot of people have expressed their view and know the situation. I’ve experienced it and it’s definitely difficult to win on a difficult field.
On gathering momentum with a result today…
“I think for us, coming here it’s a very difficult place to come. Statistically, when you look, they’re very strong at home. Having gone ahead, and the potential l opportunity to go two ahead, I still haven’t seen what’s happened there. The biggest thing for us is to manage the game and try to create a few more opportunities. We did that in the second half with a couple of good chances. All in all, when you look at the balance of play, they probably deserve a point.
On disappointment in dropped points….
“The important thing for us is that we live and die together. We’re a team. For us, it’s a point on the road. Now we focus on next week.”
On Brian Rowe…
“The great with us for Brian, not just from a technical standpoint, but character and leadership, and I think a lot of things supporters don’t get to see is he’s a standout guy. He’s the type of guy that comes in and works really hard and trains very well, encourages his teammates, good leadership, so there’s a lot of factors that go into his play that a lot of people don’t see as well. He’s a really smashing guy.”
Orlando City Goalkeeper Brian Rowe
On his performance and how he felt about the game...
“I think getting into rhythm, the better we do defensively, the more predictable it makes it for me. It’s easier. You can read the game a lot better I feel like. It puts you in a better situation. Defensively, the last two games, we’re really starting to find our rhythm and our spots and our numbers and figure out how we can be strong defensively.”
What’s working defensively...
“I mean, just the intensity. The desire to not concede. I mean, guys are, like you saw today, throwing their bodies on the line in front of balls. In front of shots. Just I think that intense and it’s made a big difference. And I think the personnel we have. We made a point to make sure we just had a person back and making sure we truly had numbers back and not getting caught one-on-one or down numbers. So guys are in good spots.”
Communication with Jansson, Sane...
“It’s great. I mean, they’re both veteran guys, so it makes it easy because I’m able to be behind them and kind of let them know. But they’re also able to control the guys in front of them and move them to help their position, so yeah. It’s been good.”
Orlando City SC Midfielder Nani
On his goal scoring form recently…
The goals [are] always important when you have the team. My focus is not all about the goals, obviously, I am very happy to score. Like I said what gives me the opportunity is the way the team is playing, the way the team has improved in the last games. We have been playing well, we have been playing better. More consistent, we have been showing we are a better team since the beginning of the season. We just create chances for everyone, I think anyone can score now.
On the draw today with NYCFC…
Yes, I think we must be disappointed. We want to be a very ambitious team. We are working on that. We must be disappointed because we want to be at the top, we want to improve every week.
On what OCSC needs to improve going forward…
Every team plays different, they show different movements, they show different players. We must be prepared to play against each team. We are working every week, we are improving. Most important, we are learning how to play with different tactics and different styles of players.
