Costa Rican assistant coach Oscar Ramirez (left) with Hernan Medford Bryan field questions.
Here is the transcript of the post-game press conference of Wednesday September 12th, 2007 held after the Canada vs. Costa Rica game held at BMO Field in Toronto.
Dale Mitchell is the new coach of Canadian Men’s National team.
Joined in progress:
Dale Mitchell: ...and certainly there were chances there for us to win it; five or six decent chances. (We) got a very good goal from Dwayne (DeRosario) after we went one goal down. A little disappointed with the result because maybe we had down enough to deserve the win. And certainly the game was slowed down very professionally by the Costa Rica team. I think when they went down to ten men. And we lost a little bit of momentum there. Couldn't really take advantage of it in the second half. But overall I think a good performance. I can't fault the effort of all team or the quality of the play really.
Woman (from CBC): There were a group of fans today wearing black t-shirts…
Dale Mitchell: Was there?
Woman (from CBC): ...and I'm just wondering what your comments on that would be?
Dale Mitchell: You're so focused on the match; you know especially on a match like that, that you don’t really pay any attention to things that are going on in the stands.
Woman (from CBC): What about the fact that the fans are not happy? (mumble mumble)...showing their support by wearing black t-shirts today?
Dale Mitchell: Yeah I don't have any comments to make other than on the game itself.
Some Guy: Dale the players before the game, were talking about the field turf. You had to coach Canada's Under 20 team and they dealt with it. Were you surprised by your National Team members' opinion on the turf and now that the game is over, what your thoughts are?
Dale Mitchell: Well you know I think players will always have their opinions. I think we all have to understand that our players train and play, a majority of the, on top of quality grass pitches in Europe. That's what they're used to. You know the field here doesn't have that-it's Field Turf. If that's the right terminology for it. However I don't think it affected the quality of the game. I thought the game had a lot of speed and skilful play to it and I think in some ways it's suited (for) a number of the players and their abilities and it provided for a very quick and I think entertaining match.
Neil Davidson (Canada Press): Dale what's next for your team? You want to take advantage of a performance like this I'm sure, get the guys back together. Is there anything in the plan?
Dale Mitchell: We won't have anything in October during the dates but we're looking to secure something and we feel we're pretty close. I'm getting something for the November dates which would be our last get together. It's a double date so we're hopeful of getting something for the international dates in November.
Some guy: Dale there's already been on the internet for the 21st of November on some sites that you guys are playing South Africa. Is that what you're thinking?
Dale Mitchell: Ummm. It's not...I don't think it's finalized at this moment but there's certainly a number of teams, and South Africa is one of them, that we're indicating playing during the international date.
Translated question from some guy in Spanish: Were you surprised when Costa Rica show(ed) up?
Dale Mitchell: No not at all. I think it was a quality game. I think we all know that Costa Rica has been in the last two World Cups and they've been there because they have quality players and perhaps because we had a win against them in the Gold Cup motivated their team because they played with a lot of intensity as did our team and it made for a very good and worthwhile exercise for both teams.
Translated question: Why do you say you were "a little disappointed"?
Dale Mitchell: Oh I'm just a little "disappointed" that we didn't get a win you know because I think we had maybe half a dozen decent opportunities to add to the one goal we scored and I think that Costa Rica took advantage of maybe their only chance that they had in the game I think.
End of that interview. Now the Costa Rican coach Hernan Medford Bryan and his assistant coach Oscar Ramirez took the spot at the interview table. This part of the interview was conducted entirely in Spanish and the Canadian reporters fled the room. I stayed and good thing too as my press pass wouldn't have got me into the player's locker room.
I got one question in for the only part of the interview conducted in English. My question was translated to the coach and back to me by Juan Carlos Ramirez Gaston who I remember was an assistant coach of the Toronto Lynx back in 2001. (Background to my question was that I noticed that Costa Rican fans had no problem occupying many of the good=expensive seats as there were just over 9000 tickets sold out of a 20000 capacity).
Rocket Robin: The Field Turf here; it's not real grass and if you guys could come back and play a qualifying game, would you rather play here for the fan support or would you play Edmonton or somewhere where there's real grass? Is it better for real grass or better for fans (support)?
Hernan Medford Bryan: The National Stadium for them is artificial so for them there is not a problem to play here.
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Costa Rican assistant coach Oscar Ramirez (left) with Hernan Medford Bryan field questions.
So that's it. Glad I could do something different than the other people there. The newspapers and television reports probably at most only grabbed a one sentence 'bite' of this whole press conference. Sorry it's a bit late but I'm going to about three CSL games a week and have a full time job so I didn't have the time to transcript from my micro recorder until recently.
This is the kind of stuff I'd like to do with Toronto FC but the media liaison person wants only wants to work with 'the working media' not a hobbyist.
Rocket Robin
robing@eol.ca
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