Orlando City Coach’s Show Recap: Anthony Pulis Talks Red Bulls, USL Team

On this week’s Orlando City Coach’s Show with Adrian Heath, the Lions boss was absent due to Wednesday night’s U.S. Open Cup match in Chicago. In his place, former Orlando City midfielder and next year’s USL team head coach Anthony Pulis took his place.

Red Bulls Game

"Attitude was really, really good."

"If we perform like that for the rest of the season we'll definitely win more games than we lose."

"In the second half you would've thought they (New York) we're the team with 10 men because they dropped really deep. That's testament of how our boys played."

Corey Ashe

"I thought he did great. A lad that's not played a lot of football this year to get thrown into the deep end like that, I thought he performed really well. He's very athletic. He wanted to get forward. He's a good one-on-one defender. And I think he can be very pleased with his debut."

Red Cards

"I honestly think some of our sending offs have been really harsh. That's my own personal opinion. And I think if you ask players to say, ‘Be careful of your tackling,' I think you're taking something away from them as players."

Message Going Forward

"That performance was great. The result wasn't good. Let's try to forget about it and concentrate on the next game."

Referee Performance

"You want the postgame press conference to be about the players and about somebody scoring a fantastic, match-winning goal. Or who's played well rather than about the referee and decisions that he's made. And decisions that affect that game of football and affect seasons."

"That decision (Larin's red card) could make the difference between us making the playoffs and not. And I hope to God it doesn't but that's what these decisions do."

Larin's Red Card

"For me, where did his foot land? There's got to be a common sense factor in this. For me, it can't just be by the book. There's got to be a common sense in this that Cyle's foot landed between the kid's legs. Didn't touch him at all. For me, the officials have got to do better."

"I know the officials don't know these players personally, but I can tell you, from knowing the kid, he's the last person that would want to hurt anybody. He is just a generally really nice kid. He hasn't got a malicious bone in his body."

Decision to Appeal Larin's Red Card

"I think it was important that the club as a whole stood behind him (Heath) and supported his comments. And hopefully U.S. Soccer will see sense and rescind the red card."

MLS Referee Professionalism

"If this league is going to continue to grow and continue to get better and better to hopefully get up there with the best leagues in the world, that is something that U.S. Soccer seriously need to look at. I think the referees need to be made professional."

"The pool needs to get better. They need better training. For me, and let's say this red gets rescinded, for me, that referee should get banned for three games. It's exactly the same as what happens to a player. If a player gets sent off or does something wrong, and the player gets punished with a fine or a game or a three-game ban, for me, that deserves the same course of action. Because it's not fair. Like Adrian Heath was saying, the 33,000 fans got cheated. Because of one person."

Transition to Coaching

"The transition's been pretty smooth. I've been in quite a unique situation to be lucky enough to obviously come from a family that's been involved in football so I've been around coaches and managers a lot as a kid. So I knew what it was going to be like, the day-to-day organization of training, scouting, analysis, stuff like that. So it was always going to be a path I wanted to go down. It happened a little bit earlier than I wanted it to if I'm completely honest. But I'm really pleased I made the decision because I think if I'd have gone somewhere else and carried on playing I wouldn't have the opportunity that's just come up now."

USL Difference

"It's changed a lot, even this year. The stadiums and fields are a lot better than when we were playing there."

"I think that it's definitely going to be a bonus for myself that a lot of these places I know compared to if I had come in cold. That may have shocked me a little bit because there are some places that are not the most welcoming. But hopefully I'll be able to get those players that are not used to that, I'll be able to make them aware of what to expect."

Road Trips

"It's literally airport, to the bus, to the hotel, possibly to a training facility, back to eat at the hotel, sleep, rest, maybe have a walk in the morning of the game for 15-20 minutes, play, and then maybe you have a chance to get a bite to eat before you fly back the next day."

Purpose of USL Team

"Yes (it will be the same style of play). It's going to be a developmental team. It's going to be a young team. But at the same time we want to win games and be competitive in that league. But if we're going to produce players — which, my job description is going to be to produce players that are ready to hopefully go and make the jump and play in the MLS team for Adrian — it's pointless for me to play them in a completely different way to the MLS team because then when they go with Adrian and he asks them to do something and they don't understand exactly what he wants them to do, that completely defeats the object of what we're trying to do. So I'm going to try to coach them in exactly the same style of play as Adrian."

"That's the whole point of it. That they understand the system and they know their roles within the system so hopefully if they do get bumped up or promoted up to the first team then they know exactly what's expected of them."

Where USL Players Will Come From

"The majority of players will be young. We'll bring some international players in, younger ones that we feel have got potential that hopefully we can develop them and hopefully they can move on to the MLS, some college players. And then we'll probably bring in some older players with USL experience."