Pre-Match Press Conference Coach Troy Lesesne 06/13/2024 - DC United vs. Charlotte FC

Troy Lesesne talked to the media this morning and stated that Charlotte FC is a difficult opponent in a great atmosphere. He hopes that DC can match up well against and challenge them for three points.

Even though DC has a limited roster, he believes he has a capable group this weekend to do the job as a visitor. The black-and-red last win came in an away game against Atlanta United at Mercedes Benz Stadium, with Benteke's hat-trick giving them the 3-2 victory.

He also stated: " We have a young talented player in the group... Fletcher, Matai, Ku, Hopkins. These guys will have to play a big role for us and they can handle it." He also mentioned that they need to stop putting themselves in situations that are caused by self-inflicted mistakes and working on how they are going to improve that through training. We are second in the league of expected points but tenth in the table. Is there for us if we can continue to concentrate on chipping away the things that have hurt them.

After asking him about a self-assessment on his team halfway through the season he said: "We have set out to reset our club's culture, environment, style of play and reconnect with our fanbase and community. We have reconnected internally as a club. I think we have made a lot of steps in all those directions in the way that we want. We have to raise that level of consistency. As a self-assessment, I feel good about the direction that we are going but I want to get toward realizing the real outcomes in a faster rate. We have a lot of things that we need to work on to realize that. We are critical of ourselves, and we try to get to work in every single day to keep making these gains that we need to get there in a faster manner."

After asking him about the things the team can replicate from the last away victory: In Atlanta, we made two mistakes: gave up a penalty and an own goal. But outside of those two mistakes, we overcame that, and we put our best stuff together throughout the year. Not just staying on the wins, I think we had some good performances through some draws, and even a loss at Inter Miami, which was one of our best defensive outputs of the year in terms of minimizing a talented attack. While we can't point to a win in the last four or five matches, there are a lot of things happening in those games, that we know we are on the right path. But, to realize three points and a complete performance we have to shore up the other things.

Coach Dean, Charlotte FC's head coach, said that DC United is a team that presents a threat because they are a team that is hard to beat. He mentioned that they should be aware of players like Christian Benteke. He also said that MLS is an enjoyable and underrated league.

The Black-and-Red will be traveling to Bank of America Stadium in North Carolina to play against the Crown this Saturday, June 15th at 7:30 pm.