CHICAGO (July 23, 2023)* – *Chicago Fire FC II (6-7-6-1) saw their undefeated streak come to an end in a 3-2 loss on the road against Orlando City B (10-7-2-1) at Osceola Heritage Park in Kissimmee, Florida. Midfielders Billy Hency and Luka Prpa each recorded a goal for Chicago.
Chicago Fire FC II Head Coach Ludovic Taillandier
On his initial thoughts on how the team played…“First, I have to congratulate the opponent. Orlando had a good game. They were definitely challenging us on the one v one battles on the physical side of things. Good players were able to take us one on one and this was definitely a tough game on those aspects. We tried to be solid as a team. And we competed to come back into the game after conceding first from a cross we were unable to defend. The way we marked their forward was also a problem on the third goal. Same thing from a cross that we were not in position to defend the cross very well. At 1-1 we scored on the counter attack in the second half. Which was good because we liked the fact that we could hurt them on the counter attack and we did that with Luka’s goal. And after that we started dropping a little bit with very low pressure on their midfielders. And they took total control of the game. We started to be way too low on the field. Starting from there I felt we lost the control of the game and in general they were better than us tonight.
On what he has learned in the past few matches…
“I mean we are a good team. But we need to improve, we need to grow to get to the top of the table. Those games are definitely important games like the game last week against New York City FC. Their team is in the same rank and it’s interesting to compare them. We are definitely competing for a spot in the playoffs. We need to keep working to get there. We are close but we definitely have a bit of work left.”
On what positives he takes from this match heading back home to Chicago…
“I’m not sure if there are a lot of positive things, the guys are disappointed. But we want to think about the good parts of the game. The capacity in which we created chances in the first half we could’ve scored a little more. Now we need to be able to defend better against those teams because they definitely created too many chances and we need to fix that for the next game.”
Chicago Fire FC II Midfielder Billy Hency
On how the team performed against a strong Orlando side…
“Yeah, I think they’re a really good team. Lots of individual talent. I think there’s a lot of little things that we can clean up but I think everyone gave it a good effort. Just a bunch of little things I think we need to clean up.”
On the standings and how the team rebounds moving forward…
“I think we just need to learn from tonight and do some little things better. I don’t think it’s anything to put our heads down about, I think, like you said, we’re still close in the playoff race. And that’s our goal - to get in.”
