LOS ANGELES FOOTBALL CLUB MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 19, 2021

Bob Bradley

Press Conference

Los Angeles Football Club - 1, Houston Dynamo - 1

THE MODERATOR: We'll take an opening statement from coach.

BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, no problem. Quick thoughts. I thought we came into the game with a really good mentality. Focus was right on the money. It was a hard fought game.

First half, I thought was very hard fought. They came out. They were aggressive, trying to put pressure. We still were able to push them deep over the course of the game. We have a lot of possessions. In that kind of game we hurt ourselves, again, with one play. Murray plays a ball forward to Bryce. He runs past them, which doesn't make any sense. Bryce loses one there. We have a chance with Murray and Marco and we let Picault split them. Eduard has recovered into the middle to take Murray's spot and we just don't do a good enough job of closing Urruti down.

So I think from the game they had three shots, two on goal, and Pablo makes one good save, but we still, when you're playing in a tight hard game and you take the lead at home in front of an amazing crowd, that ability to handle one or two plays until we can get the next goal. Those are the little details right now that we continue to hurt ourselves with.

But I still felt some positives. Thought it was probably Cifu's best game. So for me that's a step forward. We feel like Bryce has made progress with the minutes that he's played in Las Vegas and still he comes on the field, makes some good plays, gives Diego a very good pass, where Diego finishes right at the keeper.

So some things that I think are positive and in the moment we got to just continue to push ourselves through this stretch and be ready for Wednesday.

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions.

Q. I want to ask you about Carlos. Was there something with him when he got hit and was that the reason for his substitution or was it just like a sub decision?

BOB BRADLEY: We still have it to manage his minutes. We have three games now in a week and as we have gone through this last stretch, his ability, still when we look at where he is, minutes, so that we can continue to move him forward.

Q. What did you see from Raheem and Cal and what they did or what do they bring to the table out front?

BOB BRADLEY: Raheem got involved in a couple of plays. I still liked to see him at times be a little bit more of a direct threat. The one left-footed shot he hooks a little bit too much, but I thought that he came in and did it right.

Cal didn't get as involved as we would hope tonight. In the games with Vegas he's been a threat in terms of getting to goal. The one shot he had, I think, was from not a great angle, the corner of the box, so I think there's still more -- I think can he still give us more.

Q. Your thoughts on the play of Raheem Edwards tonight?

BOB BRADLEY: Yes, Raheem came on. I think he made some good passes. He got himself dangerous a couple of times. I think we can get more from him. I think he can be at times a more direct threat. He's a skillful player and now utilizing his speed and making him more dangerous, that's what we're still working on.

Q. I just want to ask you about Cifu, about him on the match. How have you seen Cifu on this match and you were talking about Carlos. Is part of this process to get more minutes and minutes and minutes for Carlos to recover the best version of Carlos, like the version that we have seen of Carlos in 2019, 2018?

BOB BRADLEY: Yes, Cifu, I think, had his best game. He was more committed in the game. He found good ways to get forward, had one very good shot from outside the box. I think that he was involved in the game in a lot of good ways, including the goal.

Yes, of course the goal was to get Carlos back to his best level. One of the things that becomes so important to do that is to make sure that when he's on the field that we are getting dynamic moves, taking the ball on the run, trying to go by people, being a threat with some deep runs. Carlos can always play more minutes where he stands a little bit more, waits for the ball, but we know that that's not the best version of Carlos.

So, for right now, pushing him, making sure that the minutes that he's on the field are more dangerous, more threatening, and then trying to build him up that way.

Q. It looked like in the early minutes Diego may have had a little issue or something, but he did play the full 90, so I wanted to check and see if he had any injury or if he had a clean bill of health coming out of this game.

BOB BRADLEY: I believe he has a clean bill of health. Haven't heard anything about that play. I remember it, but he got up, he continued, and it was not mentioned at halftime, so that's my understanding at the moment.

Q. You're going to have, besides this game, like two or three games per week, one against Dallas this Wednesday, and then I believe it's another one against Sporting Kansas City. How are you going to manage your team by in the starting 11 sense? How are you going to manage that? And with Diego, it's a good chance for Marco Farfan to show up. What are your thoughts on his performance tonight?

BOB BRADLEY: I thought overall Marco played well. I mentioned the play that led to the goal where I thought he and Murray could have done better when Picault got the ball. But overall I thought Marco played well, and throughout the year he's shown that he is a player that picks up ideas quickly, and I think is continuing to gain confidence. So that's very positive.

What was the other part of the question?

Q. Yeah, like, with so many games this week, how are you going to managing your starting 11? Are you going to have the same team? Are you going to do the same rotations? How is that going to work?

BOB BRADLEY: Yeah, more -- rather than answer what the starting 11 will be, I'll just say this: I think over the course of three games we have to manage minutes. So we'll look at players' loads tonight, how much running, how much sprinting, all those kind of things. That will help us figure out where we are come Wednesday, and then of course, we'll think about the same things and look at the two games' numbers, so that we have an idea for Kansas City. So I think that you could tell tonight by the way we made some substitutions that we're already thinking about how to manage minutes and that will be the case over the next two games.