“We won—that’s the most important thing”: What They’re Saying after the Spirit’s 2-0 Victory
On Saturday night, the Washington Spirit defeated Racing Louisville, 2-0 in the club’s first match back from the international break. After the match, Head Coach Jonatan Giráldez and goal scorers Ashley Hatch and Leicy Santos spoke with the media.
Jonatan Giráldez, Head Coach
On second half adjustments:
In the first half, we created more chances than them. We were better, but we were not so patient to create chances in the way that we wanted to create today … In the second half, we were more clinical … the negative point is about the last minutes I think we didn’t close the game in a transition or [we needed to] be more patient and have more possession when we were defending … So in general, I have to be happy because we got three points, that’s the most important thing.
On player availability:
I think next week we’ll have more players available. I never like to say that because, you know, during the week we have to wait … very probably we’ll have more players available for the next week and also less restrictions in terms of players availability and load minutes for all of them.
On playing away from Audi Field:
I think one of the most important things that we wanted to emphasize is about the mentality of the team when we play away. If you analyze the last season, I think the team had an amazing performance playing at home in Audi Field. But we struggled a lot away, right? We didn’t win a lot of games playing away. So right now we won the three games that we played away [in 2025] … I think it’s important to send messages in the way that we want to compete away because we know how difficult it is, especially when you have to come from an important international break.
Forward Ashley Hatch and Midfielder Leicy Santos
On their goals:
Hatch: We had a good team build-up. We were patient. We were keeping the ball. [Esme Morgan] picked her head up, and I feel like we kind of made eye contact. She gave a nice little driven ball, and I just had to help it on, and it was good.
Santos: [Translated from Spanish] I’m very happy to score the goal, not only because of scoring, but because of what meant to the team. We won—that’s the most important thing. And hopefully those keep coming.
On the team’s mentality:
Hatch: We’ve been talking about the “Spirit mentality”, especially on the road. I know a lot of us were gone for international duty, but there’s no doubt that all the girls that were here were continuing to work hard to be ready for this game specifically. And every single week. That’s something that we developed last year and that we’re going to continue to do this year.
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