Matias Almeyda’s press conference after America/Chivas

Matias Almeyda must be having his worst time with Chivas. A season after winning both the Copa MX and the Liga MX, Chivas is already eliminated and at the hands of none other than their biggest rival America. Still, some positive signs were shown on Wednesday as Chivas gave their best game of the season. The elimination might also have given Almeyda the opportunity to finally know what wrong with the team and while he looked sad, he also looked as a man who was proud of his team and who finally might have the answers to what went wrong.

Here are some of the highlights from the Press conferences after the game (Press questions are in bold):

-Can the word injustice be present in the world of football because it's a reality that Chivas was the overly superior to America today but you also said that "today we back to doing things that we had stopped doing", did the team wake up too late?

Yes, I said it. We are all conscious of it and we have talked about it. I have to be the most responsible agent in all of this. I knew inside that it was going to be a very difficult season, although not as much as it turned out. Evidently the team woke up too late to fight for a place in the Liguilla. It's the biggest teaching I've had in the 6 years of my coaching career. From the bad I take out a lot of positive things.

-What do you mean when you say that you assume the responsibility for this? What could Matias Almeyda be to blame for when we can all see that the ball doesn't go in? The other day in Morelia you dominated and then we saw a weird ball go in off a defender, why do you take the blame for that in this moment?

Yes, I can take myself out of this bad moment. Surely in some of the decisions. I planned this project for two years with this players to grab success and we did it. But now I couldn't get this team to hold on to that success. The criticism I have to make with myself is evidently that I couldn't transmit that regularity to continue being successful. This is all a learning experience for all of us. We all wanted this win for a lot of things even if it wasn't going to change the situation but we wanted it for the fans, for the club. In football when this moments come we have to hold on. We need to add more points and we still have Copa MX, which we will play to win it.

- You've talked about your mistakes but what other mistakes were made that took this team to the failure it is now living?

Well those things are kept with us. Obviously those mistakes are shared and we must try not to do them again. The first thing I did was to maintain this team, thinking a lot about the economic situation of this club. Giving the players the opportunity to show this season why they became champions. We only went for one addition and those are things that we have to question doing so in the future. But that is a teaching we are left in: to have success we have to cope with failure.

- Is it frustrating to lose today when even Coach Miguel Herrera said that Chivas had been better than America?

No I don't get frustrated. I would be frustrated if my mind closes in just in the result. But no, it doesn't frustrate me because I saw attitude and the team showed a style that we were looking for. Before coming in, Jesus Sanchez got injured in training and we had to play Isaac Brizuela for him and he did it perfectly. But obviously the result can leave a person happy but not only this loss but all the losses.

-With all you have said, in what positions will you need reinforcements and how many will you ask the ownership for next season?

If I was thinking about that, I would be wrong in the head. Today I don't have time to think about this. I still have the Copa MX to play for. There will be time to think about it. This time we will have more vacation time, god willing I will have the players completely during pre-season.

-According to what you said about not being able to transmit your message to the players maybe this means that the cycle of positive play has reached and end and your cycle as Chivas coach is in danger?

That a strong question but you are wrong because you didn't understand what I said. I said I prepared the team for success. What I wasn't able to transmit is how to keep that success, not that my cycle with this team was over. If it was, I wouldn’t be seated here. I'm not in football for money. I'm here for glory and for things a lot deeper than that. In these two years we have accomplished a lot of important things. It's normal for a team to lower their level after a while. I'm just not going to sit here to explain why certain things caused that. The thing that I am going to mention is that I need my players to do pre-season with the team. After that we had a number of things, injuries, players that weren't dynamic plus a very particular start. We had 12 players and a lot of youngsters. And the youngsters that I have, I can't use because we are in a delicate time and I have to protect them. But if you see Chivas bench, you will see a lot of youth players.