Head coach met the media to discuss his first season in MLS
After the players met with the media and cleaned out their locker on Wednesday, it was head coach Rémi Garde’s turn to carry out his post mortem, Thursday afternoon at Centre Nutrilait. The Impact head coach spoke of his first season in MLS and of all the ups and downs him and his team went through over the course of a 34-game schedule.
Here are the highlights from Rémi Garde’s presser.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
On international players adapting
“I’m satisfied and a little relieved to have brought in players who loved their experience, the city, the atmosphere, and who gave me everything they had. I put myself in the same boat. Word of mouth between players is important. We saw it with Bacary [Sagna], our newest arrival. I hope they’ll promote the club if I need them.”
On the group’s energy
“I’ve lived this group and I have a very clear vision of what happened throughout the entire season. I see clearly that in the second half of the season, they had a lot of fun being together. Obviously playing together, but also being together. From the outside, they’re soccer players who need to produce results over 90 minutes. To get this result, there’s a ton of situations we go through together. When the relationship is good, it increases the individual quality in everyone’s play by 30 or 40%.”
On his vision for the team
“I want a coherent and homogeneous group. The fact that we battled together, and I got to know them better, gives me a clearer vision of things today. I’m not starting from scratch to build this team. I hope to accomplish what I want, and to have players to challenge the starting 11 a little more.”
On the importance of signing a striker
“It’s my priority. An efficient striker, but who also works for the team. I’ve always had strikers on my team who scored goals, even if I expected them to work as hard as everyone else. I want to find someone like that, and who’s very efficient as well.”
On where the team can progress
“I would like us to be able to control play for longer periods of time in our opponent’s half, especially away from home. It’s an area in which we must progress. Now, the team is disciplined and rigorous. Defensively, we were much better in the second half of the season. We’ll need to base ourselves off those performances, while being a little more dangerous, and remaining organized and structured.”
On expectations for next season
“Make the playoffs.”
