NEW YORK RED BULLS MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 3, 2023

Troy Lesesne

Press Conference

Orlando City 0, New York Red Bulls 0

Q. How is Lewis Morgan and what update can you give us about his injury, please?

TROY LESESNE: Yeah, it's concerning, there's no doubt about it. I think that we will have a better idea. He's obviously got to get a picture and go in and see exactly weighs going on.

But all I can say is right now once we get that scan and we get more information, we'll be able to see what the timeline is from there but it is certainly concerning after all the work that he did. It's just unfortunate to see that on the field tonight because even in the limited minutes that he played in the last two matches, he gave us a boost.

Q. Orlando City is a good team but do you think the type of performance tonight that the Red Bulls put in, is it partially attributed to the fact that you guys have been going two games a week for four something weeks?

TROY LESESNE: There's no doubt about it that that's an element to tonight and where we were and the performance, but what I would say to that is, I think the first goal we obviously don't get this play right but I think we get a lot of things right in the first half and again we create some good opportunities, and even whenever we go down a man, we still stay in and we fight.

And I think you have to give the guys a lot of credit to the output that they had on the night and everything they put into the game, even going down, whenever Lewis was down we still continued to fight to try to get a goal back in the game. That's not a moral victory, ^ but I think it does say a lot about the group through this long stretch, we are four wins, two loss, two draws. I think that we made a lot of positive progress and tonight is disappointing not to finish it off with the win.

Q. The decision to start Cory Burke, and Tom Barlow and not start Dante, can you just talk about that?

TROY LESESNE: I think Cory deserved and earned another start from his performance the other night in Miami, and physically I think he was able to recover so I was happy with that.

And Dante, after being out for six weeks he played a lot of minutes against Cincinnati. He played a hard shift for Seattle even though it was only 45 minutes and he came and he put in another really hard shift in Miami. We had to weigh -- that's a factor going into today and how we wanted to start the game.

And Tom, I think he gets into really good positions and I would have loved to have seen him score a goal as he did the other night.

Q. If there's one bright spot we can take away from this, welcoming some players back, I know Lewis goes down, tough situation, but Luquinhas, coming in, they had that terrific run that led to the goal against Miami and some great plays again today. What's it been like having him back on the team and his impact?

TROY LESESNE: Yeah, I think it's nice to have Kyle back in the mix and cranky as well and that's really important hopefully we can maybe get Amir back in this, as well. I think the stadium comes alive when he gets on the ball. Everybody sits on the edge of their seat and they are waiting to see if he can make something happen, and I think we were able to get the ball to him in good positions and we have to continue to do that.

He has to get on the ball as much as possible and because that's how we are going to be successful breaking down the opponent and it's very good to see him comeback for three, four performances before the international break.

Q. Shortly after the final whistle, you and the team had a huddle, what was discussed in and as a follow-up question, you have a break and you have a couple weeks before your next game on the 21st, what is high on your to-do list during your break?

TROY LESESNE: It was something that actually came from one of the players after the Open Cup match against D.C. United, where Carlos said right at the end of the match let's get together and let's make sure that we stay really strong as a group and this was, you know, a day after I transitioned into this role, and I really like that. I think that that showed a lot of leadership from Carlos we kept doing that ever since, through since wins, draws, and a loss tonight and I think there's solidarity in that, and the message to them was simple. I think that they put a lot of effort into the match and.

Maybe they deserved a little bit more but most importantly after that, we have to go thank the fans. The fans were fantastic tonight. The stadium, I thought was one of the best atmospheres that I've been a part of here.

Q. Given the reaction in the second half, what was the conversation like and the mood like backstage? Was there a lot of anxiety that led to what happened at the start? Can you speak to that?

TROY LESESNE: Anxiety, for, sorry?

Q. Anxiety after the first half, leading into --

TROY LESESNE: No, I think we felt really good, actually. We were disappointed to give up a goal, clearly, but we felt like we had moments in the first half as well that we controlled and we created chances, and we felt really confident coming into the second half. You know, the game changes with a decision, I think and it's a completely different game at that point.

Q. You talked about the decision with the tenth man -- can you talk about the decision not to bring on Hassan not to stabilize --

TROY LESESNE: Yeah, we could have done that. Hassan has done an incredible job whenever he's come in but we looked at it a different way and said how do we maybe not keep it at 1-0 and not be satisfied with that. How do we bring on another attacking player, another creative player, and there's risk in that but I think you'd rather see it that way than just we finish up the game 1-0. I'm really proud of the guys tonight, even though it's a tough result.