NEW YORK RED BULLS DEFENDER AARON LONG

On challenges…
There were challenges, for sure, but nothing that is too overwhelming, nothing that footballers don’t deal with in their career. It’s something that I just roll with the punches and try to make the best out of every year.

On comparison to 2018 defense…
I don’t think there are any excuses. It’s something that whoever’s on the field. Last year, we had a lot of interchanges in personnel, especially in the back and we didn’t play together too many times. This year, there was a lot of injuries whether it was guys up front or in the midfield or in the back, I had a knee injury as well as the Gold Cup, a lot of guys left. Like I said, a lot of clubs deal with this all of time. There is no excuse but there were a couple things that probably played a factor. I think we set our sights in the beginning of the year to be the best defensive unit again. I think in all of our minds, whoever plays back there, there was no reason that we couldn’t have done that again this year. I think we fell short as a unit back there and we just have to tighten the screws for next year.


On changing team style…
When you have a certain style as a team for so many year, I think certain teams, especially in the Eastern Conference, start to get used to it and figure out ways to play against us. It’s nothing that we didn’t know. We know that when teams come to Red Bull Arena and they play against us, their percentage of long passing and dumping the ball goes up because we do press and that’s thing that we got to deal with and thing that we plan for. There’s no excuses on that end and we just got to get better.