Orlando City Coach’s Show Recap: Adrian Heath Talks Chicago Fire, Looks Forward to D.C. United

Tuesday night’s Orlando City Coach’s Show with Adrian Heath recapped Saturday night’s win in Chicago and looked forward towards Sunday’s home match against D.C. United.

Gaining Three Points in Chicago

• “There’s never a bad three points.”
• “We always talk about can we get two points a game average a season. If you do you’re never far away from the top.”
• “It was a good performance. I was pleased with the boys.”

Chicago's Pace

• “They have a lot of pace on the counter attack. And I thought one of the things we had to do was keep our concentration levels high all through the game. I couple of times when we didn’t, we nearly paid for it.”
• “I thought we responded really well (to Fire goals). In between the goals they scored, I thought we were far and away the better team in terms of moving the ball, our ball circulation and in between both boxes I thought we were the better footballing team for sure.”

Adaílton‘s Own Goals

• “If he hadn’t been there for the first one Pedro scores. And then the second one, if he doesn’t slide it into his own net, he prevents it from going to Cyle (Larin) who would’ve put it in the net anyway.”
• “I don’t care how they come.”
• “I thought it was what we deserved.”

Substituting Cyle Larin in 66^th Minute

• “We wanted to get some minutes in to Pedro (Ribeiro) because Cyle’s leaving us this week.”
• “I was thinking more for us than for Cyle. I wanted to get more minutes in to Pedro.”

Back Line Conceding Goals

• “One of the things that we have to understand is that the way that we play, we get our fullbacks nice and high. They’re probably the furthest men forward in wide areas at times for us. So it might leave them susceptible at times.”
• “If you’re conceding two every game you’re not going to win many.”

New Center Back Pairing of Sean St. Ledger and Aurelien Collin

• “It was just something that we thought about, that the nature of their play, it would be a better pairing.”
• “Seb (Hines) took it real well.”

Carlos Rivas‘ Play

• “It’s probably the first time that we saw Carlos Rivas actually show that pace he’s got and running in behind people without the ball.”
• “We’re starting to understand where we need to play him.”

Potential Roster Additions

• “In a perfect world, I’d like to bring in one of each position. Maybe a defender, a midfielder, and a striker.”
• “With a salary cap and a maximum number on the roster, you have to be careful what you do.”
• “If we bring somebody in we might have to do a tweak somewhere else. Maybe somebody goes out on loan or we trade within the league.”
• “We won’t do it just for the sake of doing it. We have to make sure that what comes in is better than what we have.”

Superstars Being Good Teammates

• “The players that I’ve either worked with or played with that have been of real quality, they are decent people as well. It’s normally the tier below the superstar that is more problems. Because they realize that the only way they’re going to make the headlines is stuff off the field and not on it.”
• “The stars are easy to handle because they know what they’re about. And they know what they have to do Monday to Friday to play Saturday.”

Playing Through FIFA Dates

• “If you have three or four players out on international duty then you (should be) allowed to postpone the game or reschedule the game.”
• “You can’t tell teams to bring in top international players or young international players here and it harms you every time there’s an international break.”

Sepp Blatter Resigning

• “It was a great day for all of us.”
• “Hopefully the hundreds of millions will be going to where it should be going which is the grassroots of the game and to grow the game.”

Orlando City Signing Puerto Ricans in the Future

• “It’s certainly an area we’ve looked at. There are some real quality players down there.”

Players that have Exceeded Expectations

• “Rafael Ramos. I really think that Rafael has a great opportunity. He’s going to be a really good player.”
• “I have a real excitement about our younger players moving forward.”

Adjusting Training to Handle Heat

• “We’ve already moved it back an hour from 10:00 to 9:00. The players get weighed before training and after training. Some of our players are losing anywhere from eight to ten pounds a training session.”
• “We weigh them the next morning to see if they’ve replenished.”

Tally Hall‘s Performance

• “Tally was always going to be the number one when he was fit. We see Tally as the future of our club.”
• “He’s given the team some solidity, a little more composure.”

On Dom Dwyer

• “If we ring Kansas City one more time, we’re going to get reported to the league from (SKC head coach) Peter Vermes.”
• “There’s no secret that Dom wants to be here. We’ve tried to get him here. We’ve done everything we can. Unfortunately we can’t do it yet. I think this is his spiritual home. He wants to come back and we’d love to have him.”

Tony Cascio Update

• “Unfortunately for Tony, he’s had a problem with his back.”
• “We have to rest him. We have to let nature take its course and take its time.”
• “It’s a case of wait and see.”

D.C. United’s Fabian Espindola

• “I had a team that played against him when he played at Salt Lake so we know what he’s like.”

Upcoming Match Against D.C. United

• “The important thing is that we do what we do well. If we get on the front foot in their half, make them uncomfortable, make them play quicker than they want to, take them out of their comfort zone then I think we can win this game.”
• “We’ve proven over our two games that we’ve taken nothing from that we’re more than a match for D.C.”
• “Hopefully we can take the momentum that we’ve gained the last few weeks.”