CHARLOTTE – It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Charlotte FC because despite arguably being the better team in their last two matches they’ve come away with zero points to show for it. Defender Jaylin Lindsey describes how frustrating it’s been to lose points off mistakes and not capitalizing on scoring chances.
“We’ve been playing really well as a team. It’s been tough for us this season when we’re trying to fight for playoffs.... You go out there for 90 minutes, you feel like the team played so well. You create so many chances, you have great defensive stops, great defensive plays, and then you come out with a team that has two or three chances and they come away with both those chances, it’s devastating.
“But at the same time, I think we’re really calm in the sense of the way we play, there are just little things we need to still work on. Things in the attacking third and defensively as well, if we just fix those correctly and execute more of the game plan within those games, I feel we come away with more points than we got.”
Interim head coach Christian Lattanzio has been harping on improving the mentality of the team. Lindsey elaborates on this by explaining that staying mentally strong even in their current bad run of form will give them a chance of keeping their playoff hopes alive.
“It’s just about trying to keep the morale within our team, around the facility on a high because this is the time of the season where these five games are win or go home matches. Especially with the last two games being losses, we can’t just sit there and dwell on it we have to keep our head up and keep focusing on what we can control.
“These last five matches are so important, and we need to figure ways to go and win these games no matter what and try and make the playoffs because that was our main goal from the beginning of the season. Every player and staff member, we’re all hungry for that kind of goal.”
It’s an uphill battle to make playoffs but the team has not given up hope. Lindsey believes that the key to finishing strong will come down to making every action count and fighting for each other.
“I think it's just all about 100% fight... It’s going to be one of those things where every roll of the ball counts, like no matter if it's a pass back, or if it's a pass forward, or if it's a cross, every action counts within the game and we're going to need everybody 100% focused. We're going to need everybody to fight for each other.”
“It's all about us having the resilience to go out there and just try to win no matter what. We know who we're playing. We might play, you know, bigger teams that have already made playoffs already, but it doesn't matter in the day like we know who we are, as you know, Charlotte FC, and we have to go out there and show them that we're capable of making playoffs and that we can do it. We just need everybody to believe and have that fight and be 100% focused in these next five matches.”
