Salt Lake City, May 17th 2015: Heading into Saturday evening’s match at Rio Tinto Stadium, the Real Monarchs (1-5-3) have been blazing a trail as the first minor-league team affiliated to Real Salt Lake. Facing the Portland Timbers 2 (3-3-2) for the third time since the start of the season, the Monarchs lead the game in the first half after forward Emery Welshman scored a goal at 8 minutes.
At 87 minutes, Portland Timbers 2, Rundell Winchester scored a goal to tie the game 1-1, to the end of the match.
“I thought overall it was a pretty solid game, I am looking at stats- we had 11 shots, we created chances, I think we could have gotten up to 2/3-0 at some point,” said Freddy Juarez head coach of Real Monarchs.
Fito Ovalle had 1 assist, 2 shots and 1 shot on target
Max Rauhofer had 3 shots, 1 shot on target
Velazco Ricardo had 2 shots, 1 shot on target
Emery Welshman had 4 shots, 4 shots on target, 1 goal
With more development, opportunities, growth and experience, Juarez expects his team to continue to move in the right direction. Juarez said that the team met expectations that he was pleased with in the match against the Timbers 2.
“I was very happy with our ball possession, our tempo of game, our movement, the guys looking to get into spaces to keep the ball moving, and good pace.”
Comparing this game to Sacramento, Juarez said that game developed in a similar way; the team created opportunities to win, however learning to close the game is something that they would like to execute.
Individual Monarchs players are maturing and evolving into their positions as they are implemented during the games.
“We now have Welshman for our second game, you can see he’s dangerous. He scores a goal, he created another opportunity. The guys are getting a lot better as far as understanding what we want as far as our style of play. We think we finally found a pretty solid back line with the partnership of Covita and Orrosco is very good, they compliment each other very well,” said Juarez.
LISTEN TO FREDDY JUAREZ ADDRESS THE MEDIA FOLLOWING THE MATCH HERE:
Emery scored his first goal for the team this season during the first half. He opened up more opportunities, but said that he would have like to have found more chances to get the ball to his teammates.
Emery also stated that he thinks the team will need to continue to mature in order to see winning results.
“The team is moving in the right direction, it’s difficult to see the way that our style of play is with this league. It’s going to be tough for us to adjust… Our team’s coming along really well. Soon these kind of results be 1-0 wins, which we’ll take every weekend. So we’re going to keep learning, we’re going to keep fighting and I promise you the results will come.”
Monarchs will face the Vancouver Whitecaps FC 2 on May 24th in Vancouver at 3:00pm.
LISTEN TO EMERY WELSHMAN ADDRESS THE MEDIA HERE:
Featured image by: Rob Gray
