Chicago Fire FC fell 4-1 to the Philadelphia Union on the road on Saturday night. Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson and forward Chris Mueller - who scored his fourth goal of the season on the night - gave their takeaways from the match following the final whistle. Read their thoughts below:
Chicago Fire FC Quotes
Chicago Fire FC Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson
On Gastón Giménez’s injury status…
“Yeah, he felt something in the hamstring, so it doesn't look good. Obviously he couldn't finish out the game. That's a concern and we'll find out more tomorrow. It didn't look good.”
On the plan to replace Gastón Giménez if he’s out for an extended period of time…
“Yeah, well, we're hoping to have Terán back next weekend. So if that happens, Terán slides back into his center back position, and Mauri comes back into the midfield. But if Terán is not ready, then we have Javi, we have Fabi and we have guys who can play in the midfield alongside Federico.”
On how to ensure the heads don't drop and that the focus of the group remains on the next games…
“Well, what I told the players after the game is that we have to put this one behind us, and we have had a good run of form and tonight we just didn't show up, and when you don't show up in this league, especially against a team like that, first place in our conference, you know, you're going to pay.
I don't feel like this team is four goals better than us but I thought we gave up some very untimely goals tonight. That second goal hurt a lot and then the third goal, you know we come out, second half, was able to get one back early in the second half and then we let the third one in and that one really, really put us out. Because now we are on the road 3-1, down and trying to come back against a team like that becomes very, very difficult if not impossible. It was a lot of us hurting ourselves but they are a good team.
Like I said, when you don't play well, and you don't show up against a good team, you get punished. Tonight has to be a learning lesson for us but we have to put it past us and get ready for the next game next weekend.”
On if there’s any concern about the team’s depth…
“Well, when you get injuries, it always can become a problem. You know, I think every team in the League has injuries. We just have to do the best we can with the players that are available and then try to make sure the guys who are out, return as quickly as possible. We would like to go through the season without injuries but it's just something that happens. But we have the capability of guys filling in for injured players. So we just have to -- you know, whoever steps on the pitch just has to be ready to play moving forward.”
On Jairo Torres’ performance and if he’s fully fit…
“I think he's as close to fit as he's going to be. I don't think any player ever plays fully fit as far as when we're talking about injuries.
He's pretty much over that injury but I thought, you know, when we were able to get him the ball wide and he was able to use his ability 1v1 I thought he was very effective, especially in the first half.
What was happening to us as a team is we were not disciplined as far as our spacing so we were not able to move the ball as we normally do and possess the ball as easily as we normally do. You know, part being their aggressive nature of defending, but part us just making the field too narrow.
When we were able to get it wide and spread them out and move them from one side to the next, going through Fede and Gastón, I thought we did well. That first goal, that goal that we scored in the second half was an example of that. We had them spread out and we were able to move it from one side to the next, get it to Chris, and he was able to go in and finish.
A lot of our discipline, our spacing and stuff was not there tonight for whatever reason, but that's something that we can fix and that's something that we know that we didn't play and we didn't position ourselves as we normally do.
But we'll fix that and we'll be better going forward.”
On what Gaga can learn from that second goal…
“Well, I think -- I wasn't a goalie so I can only speculate that he maybe possibly took his eye off the ball or maybe he thought he had it, and as it was coming down, it looked like it hit the post and came off. Just unfortunate. Those things unfortunately sometimes happen. It was a bad time in the game for it to happen. I think if we go in 1-0, then maybe we have a little bit more energy; so now we come out, we tie it and it's 1-1 rather than 2-1.
But, you know, it happens. He came up with some big saves tonight. Like I said, as a team, we have to move on from that, very untimely goals that we took tonight but we'll be better for it.”
Chicago Fire FC Midfielder Chris Mueller
On how to make sure the heads don't drop in the group after such a good run…
“I think we all know that we are just much better than what we displayed tonight. I think we folded at a pretty difficult moment in the game when we gave up that third goal. I think that was really the nail in the coffin for us, and, even then, I don't think it's acceptable to just give up on the game, so to say, in the way that we did. We need to find a way to fight and get back in the game.
Obviously it stings a little bit and I know the guys are resilient, and we are just going to keep doing what we're doing. We know that sometimes this happens and you can't get too down on it because it's a game of highs and lows. So you've just got to stay consistently optimistic about what's to come, right? That's all you can do and that's all you can control is the next game and this is already behind us.
We'll let it sting tonight and we’ll get back to work tomorrow and for the rest of the week because we've got a big game coming up.”
On the lesson learned tonight…
“No, I don't think you can make mistakes like that against any team. The teams in the League are too good at this point where you can't give up goals like that in any realm. Especially on the road against the best team in the conference, so to say, at this point, it makes it really difficult to walk away with a result when you're giving up goals that are very avoidable.
So those are things that we definitely have to control better, and everyone has to take a good look in the mirror and think, ‘can I be better’ and see where we can all improve individually. Because we know collectively when we are all on it's a good team and a good game to watch, right.
But yeah, we just can't do that on the road. We have done that time and time again on the road this season, even at home where these individual mistakes are costing us a lot of points. It's not even so to say that they were so much better than us tonight and we didn't deserve a result. It's just many individual mistakes that just give away the points. It definitely sucks but it's something that we all have to learn from and be better at.”
On how many points the team needs to make the playoffs…
”We are going to go into both games looking for three points. I think that every game at this point needs to be approached like it's a playoff match, like it's a final. Because you can see the table is so tight: Three points here and there, it's huge. It's a huge turn that can put you from 12th place all the way up to 5th place.
We've got to stay focused, just one game at a time. You don't want to get too far ahead of yourself and think, ‘oh, how many points do we need’ because it just takes you out of the day-to-day and the process that we need to do. We need to focus on the next game, we need to beat New York, get three points and then we'll take it from there.
But we've really got to put this one behind us and just focus on what we can do for this next week.”
