LOS ANGELES FOOTBALL CLUB MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 17, 2021

Danny Musovski

Press Conference

Los Angeles Football Club 2, Austin 0

Q. Danny, why don't you give us your thoughts on the match today, big win, clean sheet as we just got finished talking to Pablo about, what does that mean to kind of start off the year that way?

DANNY MUSOVSKI: Yeah, you always want to start off the season with a win. We knew that Austin was a new team and they were going to come out with a lot of energy and they want to start their season off right.

So yeah, we just wanted to match that intensity and even bring it a step higher, so I think we did good. We were trying to press them. We were trying to limit them, their being comfortable in the midfield, so I was trying to put a lot of pressure on Ring for a lot of the game. And then yeah, we had a few chances in the second half and we put them away.

Q. I wanted to ask about your assist, you had some kind of back to goal play setting up Corey, is that something you've been working on? Is that something that you feel like is a strength of your game or something that just happened in the moment here?

DANNY MUSOVSKI: Yeah, I just think it happened in the moment. Tristan played the ball into my feet and I'm a target forward, so I got the ball at my feet. I held off the defender and I spun off into the space and yeah, I saw Corey was wide open, and he did well with the finish to put it in the near post.

Q. The importance to get the fans back on the Banc of California Stadium, if you can tell me something about the Memorial message to Mo, what this means to the LAFC players, especially when we know how important was Mo for LAFC and the team?

DANNY MUSOVSKI: Yeah, of course, obviously the fans are very important to this club and it felt very good. That was actually my first time playing in a game in front of the fans since I've been here.

So it was really good. And although it was, what, 5,000 people, I swear it felt like it was 18,000 people because it was so loud and they brought so much energy and that energy transferred to us on the field, and that was special.

Of course we were wearing the armbands for Mo I never knew him personally but from what I heard from everybody in the club he meant a lot to a lot of people here and obviously this community cherishes him.

Yeah, I think it was good to get that win for Mo and we honored him with that arm badge.

Q. Given the circumstances of the game, many injuries and other strange situations with Carlos, how important is this victory on the team's confidence looking into the future?

DANNY MUSOVSKI: Yeah, I mean, you don't want to see people go down, but if it does happen, it's next man up. So I think Mahala came into the game right after Carlos went down. And then I'm not sure who went in for me when I went down around the 78th minute.

Yeah, we have a lot of good players on this team and it shows we have a lot of depth and we are just going to fight. Any guy who is called on is going to fight hard to get the win, and I think that was good from everybody who stepped up.

Q. As you mentioned, a tough game, you had Austin in their first game ever really put up a fight, but looking towards next week, you have a familiar little rival in Seattle. What are you guys thinking looking towards next match?

DANNY MUSOVSKI: Yeah, Seattle is a very good team. Obviously they did well in their first game of the season, as well. I think we all watched it or saw highlights of it. We know they are a strong team, and there's history between us and them.

So we want to get the better of them. We feel like maybe they got the better of us a little of last year. They are coming here to our field, so we are going to put up a fight. We are going to try our hardest and we are going to try to walk out of that game with a win.