QUOTE SHEET
Chicago Fire 1:2 Philadelphia Union
Match Recap
Chicago Fire FC Head Coach Raphael Wicky
On what he saw on the handball call against Francisco Calvo and the decision on the red card…
“I have not seen the images yet on TV. The penalty situation for me on live, it's a situation, the problem is there is no consistency over the whole year in these moments. It's a ball which is crossed. It deflects, and from two or three meters or four meters, it hits the hand of a defender. That 's the way I saw it live. I haven't seen the images, but the problem is there's no consistency of hand balls over the whole season. That's a problem.”
“The red card, I can’t say. I have to watch the pictures. Only thing I can say, it wasn't a nasty game. It wasn't a game where there was a lot of nasty, hard fouls and suddenly you have to have a red card. Francisco is a player who never, never tries to hurt anyone. Never tries intentionally to make a foul or anything. That's just what I can say. I haven't seen the images. People have told me it's not a red card, but that's all I can say.”
On whether there was any concern about the game being played in light of Philadelphia announcing a positive COVID-19 test before the game…
“We were aware of that this morning before flying, and we trust the league. They have a protocol they follow, and in every moment today, actually, we felt that we're going to play. I never had any information that the game wouldn't be on, so we flew over here and prepared our game normally.”
On his overall thoughts on the game…
“It was like the whole season. I think there was a lot of positive. We came here away from home and played against the leader of the whole MLS, a team which is in great confidence, and our team is not scared. We played from the beginning and we took the game in our hands. Of course we knew that at one point they will have some chances. Philadelphia Union is a good team that often creates and scores a lot of goals. We knew that there will be something. But until the penalty came, we had a few moments where we had to suffer but in general we actually had the game under good control.”
“After that, I think we showed a really good reaction and I'm proud of the reaction the team showed after the red card and then down, coming back. Second half, trying everything. Again we are talking here, we are playing away from home against the leader of the MLS who just beat Toronto 5-0 a few days ago. Overall a lot of positives and I'm convinced of what we do. It's just very frustrating to lose a game like that but like I said, I'm proud of the reaction of the guys, of the effort they put in. Never gave up and never were exposed to lose three, four, five, six, one, which could easily happen here, we saw a few days ago. So yeah, we will be there. We will come back.”
Chicago Fire FC Midfielder Gastón Giménez
On how much the game changed after the red card and the team’s reaction to playing with 10 men…
“I think we had a great reaction. We fought hard and it was very difficult when you're playing with one man down, especially from so early on almost the whole game, and especially against a great team, but we were in there fighting, battling hard, and it's difficult when they make things a little bit one-sided and it seems that the fouls are going mostly one-way.”
On how much pressure there is on the team to get results on the road with the playoff race getting tighter…
“We still have three games left and we need to get nine points from those three games or the maximum amount of points possible. We are still in control of our fate and we are going to keep fighting and keep going with everything that we have because that's what we want.”
On how a defeat such as the one against Philadelphia impacts the team…
“We can't have a negative reaction within the team. Everything is positive with us. We are doing well. We are going through a good moment. We are playing well, and we know that everything still depends on us. We still depend on ourselves and that's the best motivation that you can have. So while the math is still working out and we are still in the playoff race, we are going to keep working hard to obtain our objective, which has been to get into the playoffs, and we are still depending on ourselves and we are still in a fight for it.”
