The University of Akron Athletics
Akron vs. Stanford Postgame Quotes
November 30 | Men's Soccer
Akron vs. Stanford (NCAA Third Round)
Postgame Quotes
Nov. 29, 2009
Akron head coach Caleb Porter
Opening Statement...
I thought it was a business-like game for us and that is something we have focused on. I think the tendency, at times, is for teams to try to change things because now you are playing for a national championship. Some put extra pressure on themselves or get extra excited and I think you need to do the exact opposite. You need to continue what you have done all year. For us, that is playing our style - dictating the game on both sides of the ball, jumping on a team early with our pressure, speed of play and movement. I thought our first half was one of the best halves of the year. In fact, I'm not so sure I have seen a college soccer team do what we did to that type of team like we did in the first half in any season I have been a part of. This team has a whole other gear they go into at certain times. I know there is even another level they will get to in the next round and in future rounds. We locked the game down in the second half. At 2-0, we knew it would be tough for a team to come back on us. I would have liked to have seen us finish a few of our chances and make it 3-0. (David) Meves made a couple of nice saves and the keeper has to do that. Overall I thought we defended well as a team, did what we needed to win the game and move on to the next round.
On what the halftime speech was after the impressive first half...
I told them to keep doing what they were doing. We do not change the way we play at any time. I'm not sure we played as well as we did in the first half but our goal is to play the same way for 90 straight minutes. Whether we are up a goal, down a goal or up three goals, I think that is why we are tough to play against.
On setting the school record for shutouts in a season (16) and what makes the defense so good...
They are honest. It is not just the backs and midfielders, but the whole team. It is not easy to press the way we press. You have to have complete buy-in. If one player does not buy-in, it can be easy to break. But, when all 10 are buying-in, especially like they did in the first half, it is virtually impossible to break. We showed that against South Florida last week and have shown it all year. Meves has not had to make a lot of saves. It is not because he isn't a good goalkeeper, but he just has not had a lot to make. In saying that, he has made numerous saves this year that could have been goals. Sometimes it is more difficult when you are standing around and all of a sudden you have a shot out of nowhere. Credit him for being focused and making plays when called upon. He will have to make saves down the road, hopefully not many.
On Tulsa...
Tulsa is a very good team and I have a lot of respect for Tom
McIntosh. They have been in the tournament consistently and that is
a credit to his leadership. It will be a quality soccer game. They
like to play and attack. It was a tight match at their place in our
second game of the year. We are a different team and they are a
different team. We will need to be at our best. As much as we are
confident in what we can do, it comes down to who is the better
team on the day not the better team going in. We need to stay
focused on that and winning each and every moment, one play at a
time. If we do that, then we should win the game.
Stanford Head Coach Bret Simon
Opening Statement...
First I'd like to congratulate Akron. What a beautiful team, Coach Porter has assembled a great group of players and they're playing the way all of us would like to play. I think it's a beautiful style, they're attractive on offense, they work very hard on defense and today they scored two goals on restarts. So I think they played a complete game and it's the best team I've seen in years. Congratulations to them. Briefly touching on my team, we have come back from a very difficult season last year where we lost more games than we won, and to go to the third round of the NCAA tournament is a great step in the right direction for our program. I'm very proud of them and I think today they gave everything that they had against a team that was as good a college soccer team that we've ever seen.
On Today's Game...
Akron mainly possessed the ball today because they're really good. We had gotten the opportunity to see a lot of Akron on video and looked at a lot of scouting reports so we felt the best way to play them was to play with two mindsets: one, whenever we could press we would press to try and disrupt their rhythm and then when we couldn't, we'd try and get numbers behind the ball and disrupt what they were trying to do deep in our end. I don't think we were able to do either very well. I don't think it was necessarily because we didn't work hard at it or because our players didn't get in good position, I just think Akron played that well with the ball and were able to play through the pressure. In times they weren't pressured, they immediately transitioned well to defend us so intensely that we gave away a lot of balls that no one has made us do all year.
