Callum Watson press conference after Chattanooga FC season finale: transcript

Key points

• Watson said going to a shootout while knowing the season was over felt weird, and the team had needed a straight win.
• He described his first goal of the year as a blur: a ball laid across, a hesitant keeper and defender, and he only heard the fans' roar.
• After the match, the coach said how proud he was of the players, who said the same about him and the staff after the recent departure of Rod.
• He called the season a year of ups and downs in a new, unpredictable league, with a strong start and some complacency.
• He said several teams could have taken the last playoff spot on the final day.
• Watson thanked the fans for their support all season and apologised that the team could not go further.

Chapters

1. 0:00Shootout and the season ending
2. 1:09Describing his first goal
3. 1:40Team talk and coaching change
4. 2:39Looking back on the season
5. 3:43Message to the fans

Full transcript

0:00How weird is it when you get the shootout, when, but you know your season is over? Yeah, it's a weird one. I mean, preferably we don't go to the shootout. We go home with a three point straight away and then we know the job's done. But yeah, it is a weird feeling. But ultimately, we come in here knowing that we needed to get the job done and get the three points. And then there would have been no questions or relying on other teams. But yeah, at the end of the day, we didn't get the three points. and then our season's where it is now, but we gave everything we had today.

0:33I don't think there's any questions asked about that. We had opportunities to put the ball away, but we just didn't end up hitting the back of that enough. When the game ended but the shoot-up hadn't begun yet, did you guys know or had that not particularly gotten out of the field yet? I mean, we had an idea from the lads that were on the bench. I mean, I was off at the end after being subbed out, so I had an idea, but obviously you don't want to relay that information to the boys, because at the end of the day, they've still got a job to do with a penalty shootout. And yeah, we've come out victorious in that, but unfortunately, it doesn't really matter right now.

1:09Can you tell me about the goal? Just tell me kind of through the goal from what you saw. Yeah, I mean, it's all a bit of a blur because you get caught up in the excitement of scoring a goal, especially in a game of this magnitude, but I saw Taylor, I think it was Taylor anyway, just lay the ball across. I mean, their keeper and their defender were both hesitant, allowed the gap to open up and I just saw the ball there, just really just tried to get contact to it, but I knew the contact was going to come. And then I didn't really see the ball go in, I just heard the roar of the fans and then, yeah, that's all it was really.

1:40It's got to be a great feel on you. Yeah, it's been a long time coming for myself as well, I've not scored yet this year which is quite disappointing for myself, but it was nice to get one on the last day of the season. What was that conversation like between you and the guys and the team after the match? It was really just Chris relaying how proud he is of us, because as you guys know we've been through an interesting stage the last week or two with the departure of Rod. but yeah it was really just him saying how proud he is of us and also us relaying to him like how proud we are of him and the rest of the coaching staff because it's not easy for them either I mean for Chris to step into the into the shoes of Rod who's been here for three years it's not easy for him but I know I can speak on behalf of all the players I mean we've really enjoyed working with Chris he's a great guy great coach And yeah, I mean, it's been picked up for five points with a shootout win in the last two games.

2:39But we really left ourselves a lot to do from previous games. But yeah, that chat was just about really just saying how proud we are of each other, been through ups and downs all season, not been the season ultimately we wanted all round, but yeah, we've stuck together as much as we could. So that's all it was. Obviously not a great feeling right now, but how do you look back at the whole season as a whole, first year in the league having a chance to make it to the postseason how have you just evaluated the ups and downs of this whole season um it really has been ups and downs we started the year flying uh with the wins and then we we really looked it as if to say we can we can try and take this league by storm some could say we got maybe a little bit complacent um but like say it's a new league very interesting league it's a weird league everyone beats each other i mean you look at the last day of the season, I think there was three, four, five teams that could have picked up that last spot in the playoffs. So yeah, it was a weird, weird year of ups and downs, but yeah, it was a, it was a fun, fun journey nonetheless. Just a

3:43shame it's come to, come to an end today. We would have really loved to have gone on a, on a playoff run and really pushed to the end, but here we are. Do you have any word for the fans? What do they mean to you and the team? Goosebumps now. They're everything. They're the reason why we come out. They spend their hard-earned money. A lot of them, this is what they look forward to to the end of their week. They work at 9-5 or whatever job they do.

4:14and this is their this is their release so we we love them we thank them dearly and yeah just really can't thank them enough I mean they they've been with us through the ups through the downs through everything they've supported us no matter what no matter what's going on constantly singing people's names singing for for us for for the managers for the coaching staff I wish I could go on but I mean there's not really enough words there they're just such a massive part of the club and without them ultimately the club wouldn't be where it is today so we can just thank them immensely for everything this season and just sorry from us guys that we couldn't go any further.

Source and licence

Recording: File:FULL POST-MATCH PRESS CONFERENCE- Callum Watson (October 6, 2024).webm by Chattanooga Football Club (2024-10-07), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY 3.0.

The transcript is machine speech-to-text by the TidyTools Audio & video transcriber; the summary, key points and chapters were written by Claude from that transcript. Both may contain errors: check the recording before quoting it.