BRIDGEVIEW, IL. -- Veteran Chicago Fire players Logan Pause and Gonzalo Segares haven’t played all that much this season.
For Segares, an ankle knock suffered in the team’s second game back in March has kept the Costa Rican international away from the game day 18 until just a few weeks ago. For Pause, numbers in midfield have forced the longest serving member of the club into a reserve role.
Pause (276) and Segares (213) sit second and fifth respectively on the club’s all-time MLS appearance list and have 22 seasons of Fire experience between them. Though they haven’t played a huge part this season, their veteran presence in defense helped kill off Saturday’s 5-4 nail-biter at New York and give the Fire their first win of the season.
“The experience they have, it’s hard to coach that,” Yallop said. “It’s very difficult to tell a young player ‘now keep the ball’ when you’ve scored five goals. The team has to start to play a little bit different, not as rampant going forward but keeping it a little bit. People like Logan and Gonzo know that, have been through that before and it’s good to have those guys available for that.”
Yallop specifically praised the play of Pause, who logged 22 minutes in his first appearance since a 15 minute cameo on March 9 at Chivas USA.
“I thought Logan did a nice job when he came on. He broke some plays up, maybe that was the difference in the game. We were hanging in there at the end but Sean’s save and I think Logan coming on and making sure of things was good.”
Pause was proud of his positive contributions in the match while acknowledging the more limited role he’s played with the Fire this year vs. years past.
“Obviously it felt good to come and help our team and preserve the win,” Pause said. “As a professional I want to be out there every single day,” he said. “My number hasn’t been called a lot lately but that’s part of the role I’m playing. Any amount of minutes or however my role is shaping up to help this team win, that’s the important thing for me. “
