Zakuani on Portland and KC in Open Cup

Afer the Wednesday win over Portland Sounders had a light recovery day with stretching and some jogging while the US Men prepared for their Gold Cup match. After practice Steve and I talked for two minutes about the Open Cup past and future matches.

Dave Clark: How do you think that crowd in Portland was as an example of what the Northwest has to offer US Soccer?

Steve Zakuani: I thought their fans were great. I thought it was a good game. We handled it well and it was good to get a win in that environment.

Dave Clark: With Kansas City coming up do you feel a bit of revenge after the league match here?

Zakuani: Not revenge really, we always want to give it our best effort. But not revenge. It is a different competition. We have to just treat this as the next round in the Open Cup competition. It should be a good game, but not really revenge.

DC: The team has recently instituted the swapping of roles between the Forwards and the outside Mids. How do you like that look where sometimes you will be up top, sometimes on the right, sometimes on the left? How does it change your game?

Zakuani: I think its good. I like when we change it up. I've found that when we spend the whole game with Freddie on the right the whole game, Montero up top the whole game, Jaqua up there the defense knows us. [But] when we keep switching-switching the defenders never know what's coming. You can't mark me the way you mark Montero, you can't mark him the way you mark Jaqua.

We still have a long way to go, but we continue to have great training. Since the New York game we've had some good offense and need to keep that up.