On Sunday, the Washington Spirit fell to the 2024 NWSL Shield winner Orlando Pride 0-2. After the match, goalkeeper Aubrey Kingsbury, forward Ashley Hatch, Head Coach Jonatan Giráldez spoke with the media.
On the initial thoughts after the match:
Kingsbury: Disappointing loss, for sure. We had our moments, but all together just didn’t kind of take advantage of our opportunities, and they had a few lucky bounces go their way. Yeah, just honestly still disappointed.
Hatch: I think it was a tough fought game. Things didn’t go our way, but I think it’s definitely going to fuel us for the future. We’re anticipating probably seeing them again, so we’ll be ready for it.
On if there any positives to take away from a game like this:
Kingsbury: I thought we competed well. Obviously, had a lot of fouls against us, but yeah, competed well. That’s been something we’ve been working on in trainings. We knew they were the number one team, we’d have to fight hard, and I’m proud of the way that we never gave up. We were still pushing to the very end. So I think that’s a positive. We believe in ourselves, we’re never out of a match, and I think we showed that today.
On how refereeing impacted the game and the drop ball situation:
Hatch: We don’t want to get fined.
Kingsbury: I didn’t get an explanation for that. That was a shocker. They have players who know how to get calls, and I think it being their night at their field didn’t help us at all. So like Hatch said, I’m sure we’ll play them in the playoffs, and we’re looking forward to it. And hopefully that will be on a neutral ground and we’ll be ready for the challenge.
On the injury to Andi Sullivan and how to manage the team’s injuries into the end of the season:
Giráldez: Hello, everyone. I have not the result yet, but it doesn’t feel good in the way that she had that action. The first impression is not good, but I cannot say anything because I cannot confirm anything, so I don’t want to do that. In terms of injury, right now it’s not been a good situation for the team because we are missing several players. I always want to see the positive thing: Different players had opportunity to play to compete today, and I think players maybe are not able to play so many minutes. The performance that they showed, I liked, but now what we have to do is be together, especially when we have an important injury. Let’s see what is, and then when we can confirm the result, we can move forward and decide what is best for the team in the short future.
On if there were positive takeaways from holding Orlando scoreless in the first half:
Giráldez: The first half, I think we did a good job in terms of possession. We found a lot of times Heather (Stainbrook), Andi (Sullivan), Courtney (Brown), Hatchy because we knew that we had chances to play inside with Annaïg (Butel), Tara (McKeown), and Esme (Morgan) build up and just adjust the height with Gabby (Carle) and Paige (Metayer). So, I was very happy with that. The only thing after beating that, we had not a lot of chances to make movements to finish. But in terms of build up, in terms of possession, I think we did a good job. They had one, two situations to score, because it’s normal, they have a good team, but in general the idea for the first half was what happened. Tried to have the control of the game with good players in terms of possession. But we need a little more in the last meters. By the way, I decide to put Makenna (Morris) instead of Courtney. Courtney was doing a good job, but Makenna, I think she can run a little bit, especially when we have spaces. It was the reason to make that substitution. After the goal that they scored, we keep pushing, we keep doing I think good things to deserve at least and score one goal and be into the game. But it was not like that. After that, they had, I feel, lucky scoring the second goal. It was a little more difficult. But in the end, the team tried until the end. Team was competing, was pushing the 90 minutes. So, nothing to say to the players because they did a good, good effort today.
On how to message the team after a tough result like this:
Giráldez: I think I am a person that in this difficult situation, I am very capable to maintain the calm, especially after the game. During the game, sometimes you don’t understand some decisions, but you have to control yourself to make sure that you are saying what you want to the players being calm because when you speak with emotions, it’s not so easy, especially when the emotions are not going in the right direction. But what I told the players in the end of the game: Be together. I said congrats because they did a good job. They gave their best to have chances to win the game today. It was not easy, but we have to be together. We are going to have chances to keep the second position in the league. That depends on us. What is going to happen in the future depends on us. So, say congrats to Orlando because they won Shield cup (NWSL Shield), but now it depends on us if we want to win the second position. This is going to help us a lot for the playoff. The third thing, for sure, have the desire to compete again against Orlando team. Today was a very equalized game, and we are going to have for sure chances if we play against them again, chances to win, because all the players did a good job today. In the end, we lost, so we have to be together. Don’t put excuse and see the future as an opportunity to keep growing.
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