For 90 minutes, there wasn't much to write home about in the Union's 2-1 win over Ocean City. Then all hell broke lose in stoppage time in a chaotic finish only the U.S. Open Cup could provide. Some spare thoughts from the men at the center of it all.


Union manager John Hackworth
On Ocean City's performance:
They played a good game tonight. They were a more-than-worthy opponent and made it really hard on us. … Not exactly how we draw it up, but this game is tough. The Open Cup is always this way. You’re going to have battles. It’s the March Madness of the U.S. soccer world, if you will.

On the performance turned in by Leo Fernandes:
I think he looked good. I think out of all the performances we gave tonight, I think Leo’s was one of the very bright spots because he got this opportunity because he earned it. It wasn’t me trying to throw a bone to anybody and saying hey, 'this is the Open Cup so we’ll start a rookie.' Leo was literally what we thought to be the best option, especially coming off Montreal, having some tired legs with Kleberson and Michael Farfan and what not. And his performance was excellent.

On the decision not to include Roger Torres in the matchday 18:
It is what it is. Roger’s got to play better, in both training and if he does that, I’ll give him the opportunity. But we have a lot of competition for that.

On the decision to start the same back four:
The thought process is that this is an event. This is a tournament that is very important to this club and we’re going to put out our best lineup to ensure that we’re successful in it.

On how far the conversation to make changes in defense went:
Not that far. As a staff we talked about it, but there really wasn’t from any of the coaches that we shouldn’t put out anything but our best lineup.

On the fitness of his side after the Montreal game:
You could tell some guys were heavy. We did a regeneration session after Montreal yesterday. We did everything possible scientifically to get us back. And I would say pretty good. You look at a guy like Brian Carroll, who did a tremendous amount of work as always, who scores the goal.

On bringing Jeff Parke back from injury:
We were very cautions with Jeff, so we brought him back very slowly. He was 100 percent going into Montreal. He felt ready, no problems in training, no problem recovering, so that wasn’t a thought for us.

On the challenge of the U.S. Open Cup:
You go into these games knowing that you're going to get maximum effort from your opponents. And it’s frustrating and it’s not easy. They dropped their line off tremendously and put a lot of guys behind the ball. It meant that one of our guys had to make a play, and we had to do it at a speed and a tempo with the ball that was going to meet their energy, their commitment, and we didn’t do that in the first half for sure.

On the reaction to the goal allowed in stoppage time:
I couldn’t believe we gave it up. It was very disappointing. I think it was a silly foul and we talked about yesterday, today, that the only way we though we were going to give it up was if we made some mistakes, gave up restarts or a long ball on a counterattack. For the most part, we did those things well.

Union midfielder Brian Carroll
On his propensity for scoring in the Open Cup:
I don’t know what it is. I just hope it keeps happening. I think we stayed calm after their goal, kept the build-up play. We were able to get a really dangerous chance. It led to a corner kick, Seba puts it in the right spot, I just found my head on it at the right spot at the right time, and it goes off the post and in.

On what goes into a game-winning goal like that:
It’s a little bit of both. But part of it is just being in the right spot, being where your assigned position is and just following through, and the ball just finds you. It’s just kind of a magnet to my head. I was just in the right spot at the right time. Credit to Seba to putting it in that position; it was a dangerous ball.