May 25, 2001

From U.S. Under-20 Men's National Team Press Officer Forrest Eber in Toulon, France U.S. v Italy Post-Match Quotes

May 24, 2001

WOLFGANG SUHNHOLZ, U.S. Head Coach
It is great to open the tournament with a win, especially against a great soccer nation like Italy. Naturally, I was very happy that we were able to come from behind. It is a sign of a good team to be able to turn it around during the game.

This win definitely give us some momentum and will hopefully carry us through the tournament. We are very happy about it and I thought overall the way the guys played was pretty good.

In the last part of the first half we got a little sloppy, and it looked like we got a little tired. I thought it carried over to the first 10 minutes of the second half. And that is when they got their goal. We were struggling a little bit in the back, and I thought it was partially because weren't aggressive enough back there. When we started to get a little bit more physical and aggressive in the back, I thought the game basically came switched to our side.

CONOR CASEY, U.S. forward
I think this opening win is huge for us. Italy is obviously a powerhouse in Europe, and that makes the win even bigger. They got a goal on us, and we basically kept fighting and fighting and came back. `Gooch' (Oguchi Onyewu) scored on a great header with a great serve from Kyle (Martino), and then Alecko (Eskandarian) diced in the box a bit and put it into the corner. They were two quality goals. We never stopped working and I thought we held our own ball possession well. Overall I think it is a great victory for us and a great way to start the tournament.

We've been down before in games and we knew we just had to keep working. Obviously we weren't happy about it, but we knew had to get our defense squared away so we didn't get scored on again, and then just put one in and see what we can do from there. And we did, and then we got another one right after that.

ALECKO ESKANDARIAN, U.S. forward
We were trying to get behind them with long balls all day and Conor was real successful at doing that. They hit a great ball to Conor and he did great shouldering the guy off and he led me with a real nice pass. It was on my right foot at first and I took some time, I saw a guy was coming at me and I took some time and put it on my left and slotted it to the corner.

It is big time. That is what we dream about. We are all so happy in the locker room because this is a dream for everyone. The stage was set for such a good game like this and we've been working really hard and we earned it tonight.

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