After his team's latest lopsided defeat, LA Galaxy head coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto didn't stick around long at his postgame press conference on Wednesday.
Following LA's 5-2 shellacking at the hands of the Portland Timbers that saw the Galaxy give up three goals in the first 30 minutes of the game, Schelotto only took one question in his post-match press conference and he gave a brief statement before departing.
"Now it's a bit late to explain how we lost this goal in the sixth minute and start to lose the game," Schelotto said. "We have three games, we have some possibilities. We need to win these three games and then wait for the other results to get into the playoffs. Talking about tonight, I think I'm very disappointed with how we did in the first half especially.
"I prefer to think about just one week, three games. We need to win. We have some possibilities, we have to go forward, and it's nothing more important than that to say tonight."
Watch: Guillermo Barros Schelotto speaks after LA Galaxy loss to Portland
The abbreviated availability comes at the back end of a nightmare season for the Galaxy that has seen a rash of poor defending and an inability to get their star offseason signing, Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, rolling consistently at any point. Hernandez didn't feature on Wednesday after picking up a hamstring injury in training.
It's all led to plenty of speculation regarding how long Schelloto will remain on the sidelines for the Galaxy, although general manager Dennis Te Kloese told ESPN's Jon Champion and Taylor Twellman in a halftime interview on Wednesday that it isn't yet time to have a conversation as to the future of the embattled second-year coach.
"I think it’s a challenging moment to discuss it right now," Te Kloese said. "I think beyond even the manager’s position, the players, my decision, my part is being first of all held responsible. And I think we have to take responsibility and we have to evaluate the best we can, obviously after a very rough season so far. And I think it’s not the time to discuss anything on the manger position, on anybody in the organization, before we sit together and evaluate anything going forward."
Highlights: Portland Timbers 5, LA Galaxy 2
As tough as things have been lately, the Galaxy still aren't mathematically eliminated from the playoff race in the Western Conference. Should they win their final three games and get some outside help from other results, LA could still squeak in, which would give the club a chance to redeem this difficult season.
Finishing strong in the final three matches is about giving themselves a chance to do that, midfielder Perry Kitchen said, but it's also simply about playing with pride.
"We have to. We have to find hope," Kitchen said. "We have to show pride. This club deserves a lot better than what we're giving them right now. There's still a chance. It might be slim, but we have to go out and put our best foot forward and be a lot better than we were tonight.
"We have to rebound, we have another game in 3-4 days, so there's no time to dwell. We have three games, we've won four in a row before, now it's three. If we can do that, we can put ourselves in a spot where we can maybe sneak in. So, there shouldn't be any sort of mental gap. We've done it before, we need to do it again. We have the pieces to do it, we just have to put it together."
