From NYRB
After training at Red Bulls Training Facility in Whippany, N.J. on Thursday, head coach Sandro Schwarz and goalkeeper Carlos Coronel spoke with the media prior to New York’s MLS regular season match against Atlanta United FC on Saturday.
News and Notes
• The Red Bulls have posted a 9-2-5 mark against Atlanta United in their regular season history, including a 4-2-2 mark on the road.
• Goalkeeper Carlos Coronel is set to make his 150th career appearance for New York across all competitions and will become the second goalkeeper in franchise history to accomplish the feat.
• Coronel has recorded four shutouts in his last six appearances across all competitions.
• Midfielder Mohammed Sofo became the 30th different player in franchise history to score the opening goal of the season.
New York Red Bulls Head Coach Sandro Schwarz
On Atlanta United FC…
It's a very good team, especially in the offense structure, the offense behavior with all these four guys, Alexey Miranchuk as a 10 and (Miguel) Almiron right winger, but he's coming more inside. Then Emmanuel Latte Lath is a striker, clear striker, with deep runs and also keeping the ball in some moments. And then they have (Saba) Lobjanidze on the left side. He played this now the last two games on the left side. So very good structure in the offense and but at the end, we have to defend this all together as a team, not only our two center backs or three center backs, depends on our structure or our fullbacks. We have to defend this all together. And it starts our pressing with our strikers, with our six positions then as well to be very compact, and it's necessary then also to find our moments with the ball, and especially in our transition moment.
On having playing options with Red Bulls II…
It's great to have this opportunity for this is what I what I said after the game directly against Nashville, it is our identity, it's our philosophy as well, we have very, very good connection to the academy, very, very good connection to the second team. And it's necessary, especially with Ibrahim Sekagya as a head coach, that we are always in contact, that Ibrahim is at every training session with us on the field, and then we are talking about the training session of the second team. We are talking every weekend about the performance of the game and the second team, and that's a process. And at the end, the player, the young players, are responsible, and they can decide, okay, now it's the moment to show every time the quality, his quality, in every training session, each training session, in the second team, in the first team, and then to be ready for us in our first team. But this is for the whole club. Is the main goal, to help and to support these guys for their development.
On building momentum from first two matches…
First of all, we are talking every time, every day on the training field, in our video, room, in our locker room every day, about our principles, about our intensity, about our mentality, about our behavior when we have the ball or in our principles. That's the main focus, which we have in every day when we arrive here in our facility, and then for sure, and when we play like against Nashville, when we have this performance, then we want also to get points. It was the first game in Cincinnati. I would say we deserved as well points there, in this game on the road, but we lost 1-0, and now it's to continue our way how we want to play with a lot of new faces, with a lot of new guys, new players, young players but main concentration, main focus to develop is every time, first of all, to think about what we have to build up in our principles, in our style of play. And that's also necessary for Saturday in Atlanta.
New York Red Bulls Goalkeeper Carlos Coronel
On getting the first win this past Saturday…
For us, it was very important, this first win at home. I think we want to be strong at home and then you show a clear message in the first game. This was very important for us. I think in Cincinnati; we also did a good job and in one situation they score. But yeah I think to show also the comeback like quick in the next game was also very positive for us.
On the match against Atlanta coming up…
Yeah, I was very happy for my first clean sheet last game. Yeah, I think we have good players also and we are very good in these moments. Atlanta will also be a big challenge for us because we know the quality from Atlanta and then we have to be ready. We have to be like 100-percent in the game and I think we have the quality to to stop them.