Chicago Fire Head Coach and Director of Soccer Frank Yallop
On if he was happy on how they finished
“Yeah, it's the story of our season. We've played, you know, pretty well most games we’ve had. We've just made mistakes at the wrong times, and teams seem to get the second goal and from there it's an uphill battle. I will say we didn't give up, our guys were in the game, and we tried hard to get back in the game. We give a lot of goals away to the opposition, rather than earning it. I’m not saying that D.C. didn’t earn the victory, but you know what I’m saying.”
On Kyle Reynish’s performance
“Pleased for Kyle. He’s trained well, you know he probably deserved the chance before this, but Sean's been excellent for us all year and but it was a good time to give him a chance. I thought he did very well.”
Late in the season, out of playoff contention, taking positives
“It’s been good working with this group. We’ve struggled to win games but we haven’t lost many. This was our tenth loss of the season. It’s not great but it’s not terrible. If you look at our ties, we’ve had a lot where we should have gotten more points out of those games. The group itself does not give up. Each player, individually and collectively, in every game, we’ve competed. The coaching staff has set them up to do their thing and they’ve executed, other than the two things, giving goals up at the wrong time and not finishing our chances. That’s football. It’s been a tough year but I like the spirit of the team. They’re trying hard, that’s a good sign.”
Chicago Fire midfielder Harry Shipp
On the overall thoughts of the game
“We made a couple of mistakes, and the second goal cost us. Normally, we've been sort of slacking in the last 30-40 minutes and giving possession to other teams, but tonight we were on the front foot and easily could have gotten an equalizer - so that's a positive. And we got to take a positive because the season result wise has been pretty bad so far. You just got to look at little things to build off for next year and that was one of them tonight.”
On his shot that hit the post
“Little things like that seem to be bouncing against us this year. Sums up our season.”
On drawing on the positives of the match
“That’s the good thing about this group is that individually each game and collectively this season we haven’t given up. Despite being out of the playoffs, everyone gave 110% effort tonight. Even the guys that subbed in, you look at Patrick Nyarko on the goal, played a great ball, so I think it was a good collective effort and you can’t fault everyone for giving up and not trying.”
