CHARLOTTE – Charlotte FC’s interim head coach, Christian Lattanzio, walked into the press conference as you’d expect a coach to after a 4 – 1 win at home... with a gleaming smile on his face.
“I couldn’t feel better. I feel really good, I thought it was a complete performance from our boys. Similar – but even better because of the atmosphere here that the fans bring – to Houston in the sense that if we have to play, we play. And when we have to defend, because we played against for me a very, very good team, very strong, the boys adapt so well quickly to the different tactical changes.
“Because at one point I think it was getting very tactical. They started to fight and went 442 then they changed again to 4231 and so we had to counteract every time because if they get the best of you, they have so many good players up front that can hurt you. As they showed, they had chances as well.
“But I think our boys went toe to toe with them which is in my opinion one of the best teams in the league.”
In this match, CLTFC had four different goal scorers with two different assisters. Being able to rely on several different players to produce goals is a trait that Lattanzio greatly values.
“For me, one thing that is very important in the team is to have many players that can score and make assists. And we had four different goal scorers, our players making assists, and this is so important because it means the team is rich. And from this point of view we have a rich team.”
The whole week leading up to this match the team as a whole had stressed the importance of building momentum. Being able to string together consecutive positive results is crucial in the Club’s push for playoffs.
“We will try to keep momentum and I’m sure when the guys come back for training they will be ready to give momentum to our season. I can see that they want more, they want to play more together. I think that today we went one step forward as well in terms with the ball.
"We were doing all the difficult things, so to build from the back against team that is really difficult to play against in offensive transition because they are quick and know how to punish you if you make a mistake. But in the fun part of the game we were not executing so we were not delivering balls... but I thought we were doing all the great things in the difficult part of the pitch, and in the last part of the pitch where we can enjoy we didn't. So I think for this reason there is more to come from this team.