Deila Reaction to Group Stage Draw

Head Coach Ronny Deila gave his thoughts on the competition format, how the team is preparing and being paired with Chicago Fire, Orlando City, Inter Miami, Nashville and Philadelphia in the only six-team group in the East.

On a special season…

“This season is going to be a special season whatever happens now. It’s about being ready for the unexpected all the time and now we have a tournament which is good. I don't think any team will have had a perfect build-up to this, so it's about who does it best, and we will do everything we can to be as ready as possible to get victories in the beginning of the tournament so we take that with us into the league - also, if we do that, that will put us into the fight for winning the tournament.”

On the format…

That's exciting you know when it's like a World Cup tournament. If I one time in my life will experience that as a head coach for a national team this is a good, good experience to take with you. I think it’s the same for all the players as well - it's different, but it's exciting.”

On squad conditioning and injuries…

“The squad have been getting very good results test results and we are looking much sharper now than we did in January when we came back and everybody's injury free.”

On Group A…

“I'm happy with the group – it’s exciting games. They are tough games whoever you face in MLS, it’s a very competitive league. All these teams are new teams for me so I’m looking forward to studying them and hope we beat them in Orlando.”

On becoming more physical…

“They are training much harder than they have ever done and that’s important. We are getting better all the time. We need to be a more robust, physical team if we’re going to win a trophy. We have to be ready to go into the hard games like against Seattle, Toronto, Columbus - these kind of teams who are fighting and trying to run us out of the game. We know we have skills but the hard-working team culture has to be in the bottom, as we know we have skills that a lot of the teams do not have.”