From New York Red Bulls:
After training at Red Bulls Training Facility in Whippany, New Jersey, head coach Troy Lesesne and forward Tom Barlow spoke with the media prior to Saturday’s MLS regular season match against CF Montreal.
Audio of the full interviews is attached here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/qybv7fmxz9d1egn/AABISmVNfw8VRIUdN2t9EPbea?dl=0
New York Red Bulls Head Coach Troy Lesesne
Opening statement…
Yeah, I would say that it has been a process. It has been a very long process for Dante, for our club, for our supporters. The process is not done by the reintegration this weekend. First I would like to say that there is full focus on the match this weekend. I think that is very important. This group, since last Monday has done an incredible job in focusing under challenging circumstances and this is another challenging circumstance. Wednesday night was challenging because we were down players. Now this is a challenging circumstance because of what’s going on in regard to Dante. In terms of his process, what I would like to speak to is, that the process started with Dante, number one. Dante did a very good job of admitting to the mistake, owning the mistake, recognizing that it was a huge mistake. There were consequences that followed that for himself, for our club, for our supports, for San Jose. There were a lot of parties involved in this and he took ownership, maybe not in the immediate, but very shortly thereafter in order to start this process towards healing. He has gone through a rigorous process, one that the MLS has involved with, certainly our club has been involved with. We hired an outside firm to make sure that the restorative process was thorough. Speaking to that, he has been involved in six or seven sessions with this firm that has been a very important educational process about the impact of something like this for both himself and everyone that has been involved. The club, the players, the staff members. So I think it has made him more and more aware of how that has effected others as well as why it is wrong and why this was a huge mistake. Where I can give Dante the most credit is the way that he's restored individual relationships within the guys that's outside of a formal process. This is what's impressive to me, the most impressive thing is he's taken the time to speak more individually with players and connect in smaller groups in his own genuine way. That's not guided by anything other than his own human nature. Right. Then the last part of this process to get him back to where he is today, the reintegration into the team for Saturday, is that there was a unanimous vote that took place from the team. Rather there was a vote but the vote was do we want them back or not players only. And this was unanimous, saying we absolutely want Dante back in we think that he's learned from the situation and he understands the situation better and will understand moving forward that there's still a lot of work to do. Dante, this is a long answer, but I think it's has to be a thorough one. Dante is now in a position where he's able to be back with the team. But that's been the decision through the process of the players, staff, club, that he's allowed to come back now at this stage. If others aren't there yet, supporters anyone else, that's okay. That's understandable in your own time. What I'd ask for though, is one thing that I said the other day and this is a lesson that I learned from one of our black players and one of our youngest black players in Serge Ngoma. I spoke to Serge shortly after this happened with Dante. And I said, how has this affected you? I wanted to listen to him. And one of the things that he taught me was because I had, you know, mixed emotions about what was going on as well. But the thing that gave me really good direction is this young, you know, just incredibly intelligent, black human being there was a black player in our team. He said, listen, this is a time that is going to allow me to educate someone on why this is , he looked at it as an opportunity to educate someone, and an opportunity to be a good human being to someone else who made a big mistake. Another lesson in regards to that from Serge to then Sola with the MLS and it's hand in hand with what I'm talking about with Serge. This was a hateful. This was a hateful use of words by Dante, no doubt about that. We can't tolerate that. There has to be consequences again for that. But Dante we've learned is not a hateful person. And he has to continue to prove that every single day. So I hope that that answers this question. You know, thoroughly on him if there's more questions I understand completely, but I also want to go back to the original point we have to have full focus on Montreal this weekend and Dante is a part of that.
On Montreal…
I think they were in a similar circumstance as us at one point, a lot of key players were injured or maybe struggling a little bit and I didn't address the Lewis question and Luquinhas. So I'll come back to that. But they, they had some injuries, they had some key players out at certain points. And I think they also were trying to find their way into maybe just some slightly different adjustments tactically, but this is the team that finished last year second in the conference, so there's still a lot of quality in their squad even though they lost some players from last year. I'm not surprised if they found their form and Cincinnati's a top team that we can talk about on Tuesday, but this is a top opponent. So that takes nothing away from what they've done over the last six, seven matches. They're going to be prepared no doubt about it.
New York Red Bulls Forward Tom Barlow
On back-to-back matches…
Yeah, it's been a lot of games, but it's been a lot of fun. I personally love it. You play a game and then it's a couple days of recovery and then another game, so it's been good and to go out there you know, but we're missing a lot of guys. We got a few guys injured; a couple guys were suspended from yellow cards. So, to go up there and get a point in a tough place to play, we'll take it, and we'll move on to the next one.
On New York Red Bulls Head Coach Troy Lesesne…
When Troy first got here last year, he really made an effort to get to know everyone and develop a relationship, a good relationship with everybody on the team. And that's not just within the team that goes with the staff and the people in the front office. And so, he really works his tail off to do a great job and so we're all behind him, we all believe in him. And so far, it's been really good and like I said, the energy has been right, and we really come together and so everyone's pulling for each other. We want him to succeed, and we all want to succeed as well. So far, it's been really good and he's been doing a great job.