(on overall thoughts of game) “As soon as I noticed that the referee was Fotis Bazakos, I knew. I told the players, ‘Be careful. We have a problem. We have a big problem.’ And we had a lot of problems. We made a lot of mistakes as players; as a team, we made a lot of mistakes. We gave up too many goals. But this referee today was really not at the level of a game like this. The first situation, it’s unbelievable. The goalkeeper goes out of the box with the ball in his hand and he said to the players that he misunderstood the call. That’s the first time in my life that I noticed that when the player made a mistake, we got punished – the other team got punished. He walked out of the box with the ball. He called that a dropped ball. We got a PK, but number 21, and he [did not get]the yellow card. If you tell me that is not a yellow card for that foul, I haven't played soccer in my life and I’ve been in soccer 30 years. He showed the yellow card to the goalkeeper for wasting time, and after he showed the yellow card he had to blow his whistle five times to push the goalkeeper to move on.

“We didn’t play well. We made too many mistakes defensively. But we lost against Sporting Kansas City in the U.S. Open Cup because not only did he not call a PK, but he didn’t show a yellow card to a player from Sporting Kansas City. Who won the U.S. Open Cup? Sporting Kansas City. And they did well, but who was the referee? Fotis Bazakos. Now we need to continue. We need to continue pushing. He didn’t score. But he was really bad. Today, we gave up too many options. We even scored on ourselves. Because we didn’t start well in the first half. We didn’t start well in the second half. But he cannot make those mistakes. Because that’s why we have VAR. And he cannot say that the goalkeeper misunderstood. Are you kidding me? This is not even development academy. This is professional. Our lives, our profession is on the table. For a referee to bring that type of performance, that’s not right. That’s not good. And every time he comes over here with us we know it’s going to be a big problem.

“About the game, technically, they were good the first 10 or 15 minutes. We knew that. We knew to be careful, they were going to come with everything. We need to be aggressive. We need to be focused. We didn’t do it. And that’s my responsibility, but I spoke with the players because we knew it. And that’s not the way you play in a final. You play for your life. You play for a spot in the playoffs. Even though we reacted well. Then starting the second half the same thing. The same issue. (Defender) A.J. (DeLaGarza) made a wrong pass to the middle, a square pass, and they were good. They are very good players, talented players. For tonight, we showed character. We showed personality and we showed heart. And that is something that we are going to grasp and we are going to take for the next game and for the games remaining. But definitely we need to work more defensively because we cannot be bad. Those goals, especially at home, this is the only one that we came back and we tied and we could have won. But that won’t happen again so we need to be sure that for the next game we focus on what we need to focus. We need to be better defensively and we cannot give up those easy, silly goals.”

(on what specifically what he warned the players about in regards to the referees) “I told the players that with the referee, he is not at the level. So I said, ‘Be careful because he makes too many mistakes technically. So don’t trust.’ Let’s be sure that we don’t make mistakes and we don’t rely on his decisions because it’s going to be a problem.’”

(on his plan going into the second half) “The plan was to keep the team to one. I said we need to be patient. We needed to be patient because we are going to score some goals. We were creating chances. And we are not a team that we possess the ball and pass fifty times, fifty passes. We don’t have those type of players. But we are a team that we fight. We have the speed. We have players going one v. one, and with that we knew that we would have options and possibilities to score goals. Sadly, we gave up another goal to start the second half right away. So 3-1 was a tough moment. We dealt with it within 20 minutes. We tried to come back and it was important to put some fresh legs: (forward) Vicente (Sánchez), (forward) Mauro (Manotas). It was important. (Midfielder) Alex came in also in the first half helping us because we lost (midfielder) Juan David (Cabezas) and it was very good. So I have to say that the players, despite all the mistakes that we made, they all put a lot of effort, double effort, which is what you don’t want. You don’t want to put do