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NEW YORK RED BULLS MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 11, 2017

Jesse Marsch

Harrison, New Jersey

Q. Congratulations, Jesse. Tim Howard literally stands on his head and stops you with every important shot into the net, stops the leading goal scorer from last year three times, and you score a single goal. How do you process things like that? Is it things coming out in the wash? Things evening up for you?
JESSE MARSCH: You know, I know Tim well from my days with the National Team, and I've seen enough of him to know how good he is and how talented and athletic. He's a big-save keeper. So I wasn't surprised to see that.

I thought the first one on Brad was very good today. Then we've scored like a couple own goals from good crosses and good early crosses and runs in the box. So, I mean, that's the whole point of trying to put in early balls on the ground because it puts defenders in situations that are difficult.

So we've been rewarded with two own goals here in the first two games. As the season goes on, I think we'll get sharper and better, and we won't need to count on own goals as much. But, yeah.

I think Brad will get sharper as time goes on, which we all know, and the goals will start coming from him. But great game from Tim Howard today.

Q. Today was Derrick's first start up top with Bradley. I was wondering if you could talk about how you feel he did and what he brought to the game?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, I thought overall he was solid. He was aggressive to run, to be a threat to get behind, he was aggressive to press. I thought physically in his part of the field he won a lot of battles. He was really close to having a couple plays almost come off for him. So overall I was pretty pleased.

He's had a really good preseason. He's had a really good start to the season. So we think he'll be a guy that we can continue to count on.

Q. This is a question about (Indiscernible)?
JESSE MARSCH: Well, we think -- listen, there's Gonzalo who has been here for a while and we think fits well into our system like this and he could partner with Brad. He could also play in the midfield spots, and part of the reason to bring in Fredrik Gulbrandsen in here is because we think he could be a really good partner for Brad. Sometimes we'll use Sacha up there, which we've done already. Sometimes we'll play with two, sometimes we'll play with three.

And I think the ability for us to make changes within the game from personnel perspective and from tactics perspective means that we can unbalance teams.

So, yeah. I'm really excited about all of our attacking options this year. I think it's exciting to know that each game you're going to have at least three guys on the bench that can give you major minutes and be very effective.

So Alex Muyl didn't even play tonight, but we know that Alex is a guy that we can count on too. So it's going to be a challenge to get the balance right, but it's an exciting challenge to have.

Q. It looked like you started 4-2, 2-2, and maybe changed it up to 4-2, 3-1. Can you talk about the tactics to switch?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah. Well, there was going to be, depending on how Colorado was going to approach the game, we were going to decide how we wanted to approach the game. Once we tried to tempt them to play a little bit, we figured that they might play a lot of long balls and look to pick up second balls. They do that often anyway.

But we thought with the personnel they would have up top that that might be an emphasis on the day. So if it was going to be a day of second balls, we felt like having an extra number in the midfield to pick up some of those balls, and putting Sacha in position to attack was going to be important.

Then as the first half was going on, and we weren't very good on the ball and our spacing wasn't very good, I thought that Sacha coming in underneath would help get him on the ball a little bit more, and he would help slow the game down for us a little bit in the attacking part of the field. So, I thought in some ways I thought that was a good adjustment, in other ways it wasn't. We didn't get enough that we wanted.

Q. I know he didn't make the score sheet, but helped to set up a goal for Daniel Royer. It looks like he's coming into his own and fits the mold and model as a two-way kind of guy?
JESSE MARSCH: I mean, he works his butt off. He covered a lot of ground and he closed a lot of things down. He was dangerous in the attack, good on the ball. Really good performance from Danny tonight. Really good performance. I thought he was our best player.

Q. Aaron Long is a guy you talked about at the beginning of the year (Indiscernible)?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, Aaron, we think, will be good. We've we're just rotating guys a little bit in the back with Damien and AurÃ©lien.

Q. Jesse, talk about Luis. Obviously, Tim Howard had some saves and Luis had some good positional saves as well. To tie that record for consecutive games, consecutive minutes, what's that say about Luis and how strong he is in goal for you the last couple years?
JESSE MARSCH: Yeah, it's not surprising with the two goalkeepers in this match that it turned tout out to be a 1-nil game. I know that they both took it personally looking across the other side of the field that there's competition within the National Team. Obviously, Tim's with the National Team, but I think Luis is emerging as a guy they can count on. I wouldn't be surprised to see Luis called into the next camp, because I think he's had a really good start to the year and I think he had a really good camp.

So that part of the battle was really fun to watch. You know, even though Tim made some great saves, Luis wound up coming in with a win and a shutout.

Q. What we've seen the 4-2-2, we've talked about that before as a tactic. But what have you seen in these first two games? What have you done well?
JESSE MARSCH: I yeah, I think it's still a work in progress. We haven't given up too many chances in the run of play. So if you go back to the Vancouver series and look at all the games, we've played four games now. We've given up two goals in the run of play, and two goals on set pieces. So if we can be as good as we've been on set pieces and cut down on the run of play goals, then I think the sharpness will come, the familiarity with the rolls will come, and we'll be dangerous.

So big part of the emphasis is trying to keep our team more compact and not give away as many chances. And so far, tonight, I don't think we really gave too many away.

Q. Jesse, there were a lot of turnovers particularly in the midfield. But a lot of turnovers midfield, was that due to the earliness of the season, was it they're not sharp?
JESSE MARSCH: It is part because it's not sharp, especially the first half. I would agree the first half it was just like there was hardly any rhythm to the game, right? Then second half we were able to establish our possession a little bit more, and establish the way that we wanted to play and create more chances. Listen, Colorado's good. They're combative, they fight. They battle, and they try to see if they can turn that into dispossessing the other team and creating chances for themselves.

So, you know, we make a to-do list every game of things we want to emphasize. One of the first things on the list was second goals. Because we knew that especially if they were going to decide on that day that they were going to play more direct to counteract our pressing, that we would win a lot of those balls and quick picking up the second ball in the midfield was going to be important. And our ability to settle the game down and play was going to determine our success.

Took a little while for all that to settle down, and I think it took a little while for us to settle down. But I thought from the start of the second half that now we were able to look a little more like us.

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