MLS Regular Season
Chicago Fire (6-12-8, 26 points) 3:0 Philadelphia Union (11-10-7, 40 points)
Sept. 3, 2016 – Toyota Park
Attendance: 16,102
Veljko Paunovic, Chicago Fire Head Coach
On progress
"I think the guys are doing very well. There is no doubt that all the work we are doing in the season is slowly, but is coming altogether. Of course, with Michael de Leeuw, Luis and other guys who are working hard also to prepare for situations and opportunities for them to score, it's very important that we improve. I think it's always going to be teamwork before the individual has the opportunity to highlight himself with scoring the goal, but I think that teamwork is always more important; our guys know that very well. We can say that sometimes, Michael went a couple of games without scoring, but he was working very hard, and actually he helped the others to have opportunities to score. That's the mentality we need, the team that works hard for each other, keeping our game plan, and works for winning the games, every single game like that."
On displaying character
"We have to understand that when we win like today, and when we lose like in games that we lost, we always stay the same. It's the process; we are working, we are a young team, not only in terms of age but in building, in the time that we are working together. That requires some certain time and process to perform well. This year, we've had some very good games, today was one of these games where we actually improved and played the way we prepared. It's very important after the loss to D.C. I think that today we actually showed the character, that game was hard, very difficult for us, but we were able to recover. Honestly, all this week, we were just working on recovering and preparing for this game. I said it on our conference call on Tuesday, we were working to refresh our guys, energize them, motivate them, and recover them, physically of course, and then prepare in the last couple of days to focus on the game. That's what we did, and we did it very well. The reason why I am very, very happy today is because our guys really have the character. We will say the same thing. Now, our next game, we go one game at a time, and the next game is the most important game. I heard it's going to be standing room only for the game Saturday against Toronto, so we are very happy. We can't wait actually, for the next game. We have now two days off, time to recover, prepare everything, but it is very important and exciting to hear that our crowd will be with us next game. We can expect that, and the guys are coming for a great victory like the one today. I think that's going to be a perfect day to have another win, or at least have a great performance, and make everyone happy."
On Sean Johnson's performance
"I think today, with no exception, everyone had a fantastic game, a fantastic performance. Sean obviously had a great game. I'm very happy that Sean is getting more comfortable with covering the depth and covering the aerial balls that we have. Of course, his saves were huge, very important for the team today. Overall, the performance was very good, as I said, with no exceptions for everyone."
On the meaning of scoring multiple goals
"I think today we were actually able to manage the game, and in that moment we were able to actually break the opponent and finally score that second goal, which was very important and part of our game plan at halftime. Today, we showed important character, important reaction after the loss against D.C., and we learn from every game. That's what we say to our guys, this is the performance, these are the good things, and we have to keep it the same, improve, put it in our 'good' bag against the 'bad' bag that we have to improve on. I think that we must keep on pounding, keep on working together. Fate is there, wins like today help, they help a lot, not only to the style of play but the confidence, as we said before. It's a long way; still a lot of games to play, I think we have a good opportunity, we're still there."
Michael de Leeuw, Chicago Fire Forward
On Philadelphia's own goal
"Right before I went to strike it, it was a good ball from Polster, the defender shoots it away. It's good for us, doesn't matter who scores. It's good to score for me, but it was a good goal for us."
On the team's confidence
"It's good, it's big. The most important thing is that we create a lot of chances, that we score a lot of goals. You see it in the last four, five games. We create a lot of chances, because you can't score all your chances, but the confidence is big because of that. We do it as a team, we play good as a team, we win as a team, we lose as a team. At this point, I think everybody's confidence is high."
On working with various attacking options
"It doesn't really matter, we have a lot of options. Arturo and John, yes, they're creative, but we have a lot of attacking players. Today, David Accam and David Arshakyan weren't there, but today it worked out well with John and Arturo. It's always good to have guys who want the ball and create space for us, so today it went great."
On linking with Luis Solignac
"I think Lucho is a great player. He sees where he has to move without the ball, he sees where to move with the ball. I don't know how to say it in English, but his eyes are open, he also sees the other players. I like playing with Lucho, he understands what he has to do. For me, it doesn't matter; I play with Lucho or anyone else, but I like playing with him."
Sean Johnson, Chicago Fire Goalkeeper
On the team's performance
"I think our game plan was to settle into the game and wait until the game came to us. Once we started play, I was just doing what I could to keep the team in the game. I think we did an impressive job the last few weeks of really building on the first away result we had in Montreal, and kind of using that momentum to get better and better. On the night, fantastic job all the way around the pitch, and I'm just doing what I can to contribute."
On the play of Jonathan Campbell
"I think he's a model professional. It's his first year, I think he does everything he can to make sure he's the best he can be when he steps on the pitch. For us to support him as a first-year player, he's done a fantastic job. He'll do what he can to recover and be 100% every single game."
On the mentality after the loss at D.C. United last week
"I think it's a one-off for us, we did a good job putting that behind us as soon as we touched down back in Chicago from D.C. That was the message, put that one behind us, obviously. It was a tough game, our third game in a week, going down a man early on, and then having to battle on for the rest of the game. It comes down to our mentality as a team. We've done an excellent job over the past four games of really building on something. We finally have a foundation. This league, the way it is, the summer months are important; you can win two games and things can turn around quickly. We're taking it one game at a time, but definitely look to keep charging."
On the outlook for the rest of the season
"It's important for us, two games in a row, it's massive. We've been really good this season at home, we want to continue that, but like I said, taking it one day at a time is the most important thing. We can't get ahead of ourselves. We keep replicating performances game in, game out, we'll start to see ourselves climb. But we can't start to look at other results, we can't start to look at other games going around the league; we have to focus on what we're doing here and really keep moving on that."
