Fire forward Kei Kamara scored his fourth goal of the season, but a late New York Red Bulls equalizer contributed to a split of the points at Soldier Field in a 1-1 draw on Saturday night. After the match, Kamara, Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson, defender Rafael Czichos, and defender Carlos Terán offered their thoughts on the result. Read their quotes below.
Chicago Fire FC Head Coach Ezra Hendrickson
On conceding another lead late in a match...
“Well, I mean, it's the same thing that has happened three times now: late in the game, it's a corner kick and we decide we're not going to mark our man. On the corners, each man has a responsibility, each man has a player that they're supposed to be marking. They know it, it's not like we don't know it. Against Cincy, same thing happened; last week against Atlanta, same thing, we don't mark. And again tonight, we don't mark. I wish I could explain it to you, but I have no explanation for it. We just have to get people on the pitch who are going to man up in situations like this – when the game is on the line – and say, ‘My man is not going to beat me. We are not going to lose this game because I let my man go free in the box.’
Because it's ridiculous now. And quite frankly, I'm fed up with it. But I have to take responsibility because at the end of the day, I'm the head coach, and it's my team and we’re letting these points slip away. Obviously, I’m not out there marking but I have to get guys on the pitch who are going to step up in these pressure situations and just not get beat, just not get beat. We're at home, a minute or two or so to go, they get a corner and we lose our mark. Once again. It's just ridiculous and it has to stop.”
On the mood of the locker room following the match...
“In context, I'm fed up with that same situation happening, not fed up with the whole thing. No, because the type of person I am, I'm going to do my best to keep it positive in our locker room, but I can see where it could be starting to become worrisome because it's the same thing happening over and over again. We're just gonna have to spend a good – maybe a whole – training session just training, defending corner kicks, because we're just horrible at it.
The second half is not the kind of game that we like to play. But at the end of the day, you have to play according to what situation is in the game. So, we'd like more possession, they're kicking the ball long or whatever, but at the end of the day, it comes down to just that corner kick. We man up, we mark our man, we clear that ball and we win the game. And it's not the first time – it's three times now, twice at home. Late in the game on corner kicks, we lose our man and we get beat.
Last week, we fought back to get back into that game in Atlanta. Maybe 30 seconds to go, we lose our man and we get beat. And it has to stop, and we're just gonna have to train harder and harder at defending set pieces, defending corner kicks in particular because this cannot keep happening.
It's early in the season, yes, but these points are crucial points. And it's not like we're out of these games. We're in these games. We put ourselves in position to win these games. But that commitment at the end has to be there. Each and every one of us on the pitch has to say, ‘Listen, I am not going to get beat.' And if everyone says that, we probably are going to win the game. Because no one gets beat. We clear the ball and we win the game. And it's just really heartbreaking that this keeps happening to us. We play too well, we control the game for too long, to then let one instance, one five-to-10 seconds, change the outcome of the game.”
On Brian Gutiérrez starting the match and Xherdan Shaqiri's performance off the bench...
"Well, the conversation was just basically, Shaq is still banged up a little bit. He's not fully healthy yet and maybe playing 60 minutes on turf last week wasn't the best thing after coming back after five, six weeks. He had a little setback so we knew he couldn't play 45 even tonight. So, starting him wasn't, there was no chance to start him tonight. Guti has played well, so there were no qualms about putting him back out in the starting lineup.
When Shaq came into the game, he came into a difficult situation. The way the game was playing there was just a lot of long balls, so it's not, we couldn't get him on the ball. Guti was getting a little tired, wasn't getting back in some defensive stuff, so we wanted to bring Shaq in, get some fresh legs and also, hopefully, get him on the ball so we could start getting more possession of the ball like we were doing in the first half. But at the end of the day, it's 15, 20 minutes or whatever. But regardless of what Shaq did when he came on the pitch, we tied this game because we didn't mark up on a set piece. And that's something that we have to focus on right now, it's how can we be better on defending corner kicks? Because it's costing us points and that has to stop.”
On the status of Carlos Terán, Federico Navarro and Jairo Torres...
"It's too early to tell right now. Terán was feeling, again, something in the back of his knee. So he had to come out. And that changes the game, that changes your subs, you lose one of your moments you can make a sub in because you only get three moments. So, that changes how you make your subs in the second half.
Fede, he played 30 [minutes] on Sunday, played 45 on Wednesday. He's coming back since March 4 or whatever that first game was. So, we came into this game knowing that he could only do about 60. So at about 60, he was starting to fade so we had to take him off. But he's not someone that we'll take off if we don't have to; he's taken off for injury-prevention sake. You know, just being cautious.
And then Jairo, we knew maybe he could play 20 minutes. But once we lose that moment, we lose that sub in the first half, there was no instance where we could get him on the pitch tonight. But we were hoping that he could play 20 minutes tonight. At the end of the day, guys, even losing Carlos in the first half like that, this game again came down to the last couple of minutes and that's what we've got to really focus on in training coming up this week.”
On whether the yellow cards had an on how he used his substitutions in the match...
"No, because [Mauricio] Pineda and Rafa [Czichos] both were on yellows, but we couldn't make a substitution there at all. The substitutions we made were based on trying to get fresh legs on to help defend the lead. So, Maren and Guti were both fading, so we wanted to get Dean on in the right so he could give us some defensive cover over there, and then bring Shaq in the game, leaving him for about 15, 20 minutes to go.
Yellow cards didn't really factor into it. We were going to have to play out because we only had two moments and four subs. So, we had to take a chance, and had Rafa or Pineda picked up a second yellow once the substitutions were made, we would have to play with 10. But we were in a situation where we just had to get some fresh legs on, onto the pitch.”
Chicago Fire FC Defender Rafael Czichos
On what he saw leading to the end of the game…
“I saw another corner kick that we couldn't defend, exactly like last weekend. And we were talking a lot about it last week, that we have to defend our set pieces better. And we were not able to do it again. And this is why we're here now, with only one point and not three.”
On the feeling in the locker room after tonight’s result…
“I think you can hear how silent it is. Everybody's disappointed because it didn't happen for the first time. So we are really frustrated. We're losing points, especially at home. And we are still undefeated but every game here feels like a loss after so it's frustrating.”
On how the team can overcome the frustration of dropping points…
“I think we have to think about our whole mindset when we lead a game. I don’t think it’s right to defend after and not to work for the second or third goal. I think if we would have kept playing our game, it would have been better at the end.”
On any lessons taken from this result heading into next week…
“Yeah, we never give up. I think we have to realize that we didn't lose a game, we still got to a point but like I said, we have to work on our mindset and when we want to make the playoffs, we have to stop only defending when we're leading a game.”
Chicago Fire FC Forward Kei Kamara
On his goal and tonight’s result…
“It's not about the goal, first. Yes, we can hold our heads up high and say we're still undefeated at home. But we have to give our fans more. You know, we work hard and even from the offensive line, yes, I got a goal but there should have been a couple more goals. Not connecting well between us, you know, going forward in that first half definitely could be something that kind of punished us a little bit but then yet again, just for us it's like deja vu.”
On the environment after the game…
“We didn't need the coach to tell us how mad he was for the result. And I think players, together, you know, showed that we deserve more. We wanted more. So, yes, he can come in and tell us really how he felt, but I'm sure a lot of us have our hands down and saying ‘Hey, that's just not good enough.’”
On how he felt physically after playing the full 90 minutes tonight…
“I'm good, man, I'm fit. I'm ready to go for, whatever the coach wants me to go for really. And you know for that game, I can see because we have yellows and we have maybe one player or so with injuries and stuff like that. So you just got to be ready depending on how long the coach wants you to go and for me, I'm ready. You know, if I had to come off it wasn't going to be a problem. But I definitely wanted to see this one out from minute one to the end of it and seeing if we can come out with all three points.”
On building off tonight’s match for next weekend…
“I mean, we've been building from the first game over and over and over and trying to maximize the points. Again, we can't just bury ourselves all the way down. We got to look forward to the positives that we're continuing to get. It's not easy to go this many games unbeaten at home. So we got to take that positive from it. But you know, definitely the things that we're doing that's good, we got to balance on that. But the things that's not working, we all got to look at ourselves and help ourselves so we can get full points when it comes to it.”
Chicago Fire FC Defender Carlos Terán
On his thoughts on tonight’s result…
“Well to be honest, for us this was a bad result. We need to play with more urgency and I believe all of that reflects on the pitch.”
On whether there is a lack of communication amongst players that is causing the team to lose another lead late in the match…
“Well, the truth is that the situation on the pitch has nothing to do with how the group gets along. Because to be honest, we get along very well in our locker room. I think that it’s more about little details in lack of concentration that are costing us the games because the team is a dominating team, that controls the game, keeps insisting and puts the ball forward but in these moments of losing focus we’re throwing all of our work away and we’re condemning ourselves to ties and losses.”
