New York City FC four-match winning streak 3-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City
Frank Lampard scored his fourth goal in five games, but New York City FC had its four-match winning streak snapped in a 3-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City at Children’s Mercy Park Sunday night.
NYCFC (8-6-6), which entered the match following three straight clean sheets, had a shutout streak of 279 minutes snapped when Benny Feilhaber put the hosts in front on eight minutes. However, Frank Lampard scored his fourth goal of the season and second this week to level for NYCFC in the 14th minute.
Andrea Pirlo intercepted an Ike Opara pass and slipped to David Villa on his right. Villa returned the ball to Pirlo, who sent a quick pass to Ronald Matarrita. Lampard latched onto the Costa Rican international’s cross and put in a first-time shot from 10 yards. Sporting Kansas City (8-8-4) regained its lead two minutes later when Jimmy Medranda put his low shot from distance in off NYCFC goalkeeper Josh Saunders. Ike Opara doubled SKC’s lead in the 51st minute.
New York City FC Head Coach Patrick Vieira On the club’s road performance tonight despite playing well on the road recently… We played against a team who were better than us.
On the team’s effort tonight…
Do you really think we would travel that far to give up the game? That’s not part of our culture and not part of who we are. Of course we have to take into consideration that was our third game in a week and of course that played a massive part of the way we played today. But I have to give credit to the players because they gave me everything. If you look at how they are in the dressing room, they were really, really tired and it’s not an easy place to come. It’s more difficult when it’s your third game of the week.
On the team’s recent road performances despite struggling at home… I think that’s a big challenge because we spent a lot of energy the last two games we played and of course the third one is always the most difficult one. We came here with good intentions to play good football but we find it really difficult but tonight I think there was a lot of mental and physical tiredness. Of course, that aside, you have to give them the credit because they executed a good game plan, they stop us playing and theybecame more difficult for us.
On the team’s competitiveness…I think we were second in everything. When you are second best throughout the game, it’s hard to pretend the competitiveness of the game and that’s why I think it’s the mental and the physical tiredness from us tonight.
On the decision to sub off Frank Lampard…We just needed to have a little bit more control in the midfield, that’s why I made the change.
New York City FC Midfielder Frank Lampard, “We didn’t play very well today. We’ve had a long week. Without making excuses, two good results during the week. Today, I think we deserved to lose. They were the better team.
On scoring four goals in five games…I’m fit (laughs). I’ve been injured a long time and I’ve been able to start games. The team’s been playing well and we’ve been creating chances. A lot of chances and I’ve been fortunate enough to score some. You’re happy when you win. But even when you score, if you don’t win, as a gruesome person, I’m not very happy with that.
On positives to take from the match… We have to remember what made us win four games recently, back-to-back. We’ll take out the negatives today and look back at the game a bit and realize that if we drop our standards, we’re going to lose games.
That’s the nature of the MLS. You get punished. So it’s about picking ourselves up. Getting back to New York, working hard and looking forward to the game at the weekend.
New York City FC Midfielder Andoni Iraola, said at the press conference “I think they fully deserved the win. They had the better chances. We weren’t able to play from the back, it was difficult for us with their press. It wasn’t the best pitch, also. We conceded two goals off of second plays off a set piece. That always punishes you.On playing the central midfield role more often in last few games… Well when the team wins the games, we always feel more comfortable. I’ve played there before in other systems, I think I can play there. But everything is about the game result. We were happy when we were winning games. We wanted to continue with an other win this week. Now we have to focus on the next game in Montreal. Some positives to take away from the match…
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