John Hackworth Quotations

Losing Kevin Alston affected our game and we had to re-adjust. I feel sorry for the youngster. He has broken his leg but these things happen in football. You have to be able to cope with it. We tried everything in the second half but the Netherlands played fantastically and would not give us a goal. Congratulations to them.

Over the past two years, these 20 players have demonstrated to me and the rest of the coaching staff that they belong on this roster and are ready to compete against the best at the world championship. We have a few additions and changes to our team since the qualifying tournament that I believe will provide us with the best chance to advance out of our group and get us towards our ultimate goal of advancing to the final. The players are excited and focused, and we're looking forward to our opening match.

Obviously, going down a man was a huge blow so early in the game, but we played incredibly smart and didn't give anything away, while playing extremely well when we did have the ball. As poorly as we played against Finland, we played as good today. It was a huge step forward for our team.

We have a few additions and changes to our team since the qualifying tournament that I believe will provide us with the best chance to advance out of our group and get us towards our ultimate goal of advancing to the final. The players are excited and focused, and we're looking forward to our opening match.

He'll be a huge asset for USF. He has great size, is technically very gifted and brings a great work ethic to their program.

It was definitely a tale of two halves. They came out really strong in the first half, playing real physical and winning most of the 50-50 balls, while we didn't play with any energy. But we turned it around in the second half and had a number of good chances, including one off the post, but similar to last year we just couldn't put one away.

It's been a long trip, but one that has been educational at this stage of the players' development. I hope we can learn from a game like this tonight. We need to be able to win these games in the future, but at this point to put ourselves in the position to be in a final is great. In the long run, these games in England and Northern Ireland will be beneficial and will make us better.