CHICAGO (April 9, 2023) – Chicago Fire FC II (2-1-0-0, 6 points) fell 1-0 to defending champion Columbus Crew 2 (1-0-1-1, 5 points) on Sunday night at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Ill. A second yellow card near the end of the first half saw the Fire finish the game down a player for the second-straight match. It’s the first loss of the season for Chicago, which now sits in third place in the Eastern Conference.
Chicago Fire FC II Head Coach Ludovic Taillandier, defender Justin Reynolds and forward Missael Rodríguez shared their thoughts on the loss after the match.
Chicago Fire FC II Head Coach Ludovic Taillandier
On the first loss of the season…
“I would say it's a different feeling. It's a little sad to concede in the end, when you feel the guys were fighting as much as possible to get the result, even one man down. I would say the mentality was good; the quality of what we did is definitely not good enough. Columbus were maybe a little better at creating some situations and chances, trying to find those quick combinations a little better than us. I will have to see the video, but I think in general, I would say that they deserve the win. But of course, when you fight 10-v-11 and you hope to get something, that's a little sad for the players.”
On facing adversity in another match…
“Again, the mentality is definitely good. It's not because you lost the game that you will change your assessment on it. I would say in the first three games, we’ve shown personality; now, we need to try to find a way to finish games with 11 guys on the field. That's probably something we need to address, because there is [something] better we can do here in controlling our emotions, being able to manage a situation when I have a yellow – we need to do better. Last week, that was a direct red but even then, there was probably a better defensive decision to make to avoid this card and that's definitely something we need to address also.”
On the lessons learned before the next match…
“We need to improve in the way we want to play: to make it simple, this is since the beginning of the season. I think the way we built from the back is definitely an area where we can improve, we have to improve, we want to improve. Then we keep working on that, to have a better control on the game. Having the ball is definitely a main idea that we have when we play. We need to have the ball a little more, we need to control the games, having the ball and being more efficient at pressing at the front. Today was good, but not good enough against Columbus.”
Chicago Fire FC II Defender Justin Reynolds
On his thoughts on tonight’s loss at home…
“I think that it’s tough. Especially with the yellow cards that we got. But we kept fighting, we held them out until the 88th minute then we gave up the goal. But I think that it shows the fight we give at least. It's our second time going down to 10 men and both times I think we just reacted well. We fought back and you know we tried to do our jobs the best we can, and sometimes it just goes wrong but you know, I think that it was a good effort from the guys.”
On getting playing time and his development through three matches…
“For me, it's hard to be proud right now because of the loss, but I am happy to be getting minutes. Last year was not great for me in terms of minutes. So getting the 90’s is a great feeling. Being able to prove that I can go out there and you know, give them 90 minutes is good. So I'm happy with that.”
On building off a match like tonight heading into next week against Philadelphia…
“It's our first loss so we're gonna take this feeling and it’s gonna drive us more this week against Philly you know, they're a good team obviously. So it's gonna be tough, but we have to just give our fight and give our best. I think that despite this loss, we're gonna bounce back and be better than before. Yeah, it sucks right now but we build off these and we just get better.”
Chicago Fire FC II Forward Missael Rodriguez
On tonight’s tough result…
“I mean, I feel like the team thought it was unlucky that we played one less man for like 70 minutes. But I feel like the team did a good job holding on fighting until the last minute. We got scored on an unfortunate goal. One of those that you just have to grind through and it just sucks that they got a lucky goal at the end. Tough, tough result.”
On trying to build off of a match like tonight…
“I mean, the team did it last week. We’re used to facing adversity so I feel like the team got together at halftime, we spoke about what we're gonna do. We spoke about how we're going to defend the 0-0. Actually, we didn't want to defend the 0-0, we wanted to go for the win. So it didn't drop the team at all. I mean, it just if anything, it encouraged us to go more and just try to find one opportunity to just get the win.”
On next week’s match against Philadelphia…
“It all starts in practice. I mean, the attitude has to be there in practice. I feel like the team knows that this hurts because I feel like we dominated when we had 11 men. So the team knows that we're more than capable of coming out next week and playing the way we did for those first 30 minutes and getting a result next week.”
