Coming off of Saturday night’s convincing 3-0 win in Montreal, Chicago Fire head coach Veljko Paunovic returned to training on Monday. Following the session, Paunovic addressed the victory and his preparation for Wednesday’s contest against the LA Galaxy on a conference call with local media.
“The feeling we have, it’s not a sensation of relief,” he said. “It’s more something that we were doing this year. It’s the feeling of achievement, of achieving something that was our goal, and it was to win on the road. As I said before -- and I’m going to stay with the same mindset -- we can only get better. We are working hard to achieve our goals. It’s a process and a part of the process was winning on the road.”
Match Highlights: Chicago Fire 3:0 Montreal Impact
Saturday night’s win snapped a streak of 36 consecutive games the club had gone without winning on the road. While not many had favored Chicago to come away from Canada with a full three points, Paunovic himself was not left speechless with his team’s performance.
“Absolutely not surprised,” he said. “We always do our best to prepare and play, perform in the best possible way. We also know that in the last games we were getting better, we were getting closer. Maybe in some games we didn’t (perform) on that level, but I can say most of our games on the road we played well and it was only the posture that we were missing, which in this game I think we finally found it.”
While the turnaround is quick, Paunovic believes the timing couldn’t be better for his team to host the LA Galaxy on Wednesday. LA enters the match after a 1-0 defeat to NYCFC over the weekend, but have been one of the league’s best performers on the road this season. Paunovic will be leaning on the momentum generated in Montreal to help see his team through.
“When you win, you want to play the next game and the next game you want to win,” he said. “You want to prepare well. The locker room is very motivated, and I want to encourage and take advantage of this situation to reinforce everything that we were doing so far and reinforce the hard work and keep pounding the rock because we still haven’t done anything yet. In order to do that, we’ve got to take advantage of this momentum.”
The Galaxy currently sit fifth place in the Western Conference, and -- outside of another opportunity for the Fire to climb the table -- Wednesday night offers Paunovic a benchmark with which to measure his team’s development.
More: News and notes from Chicago's win in Montreal
“I do see the team that is starting to play the way that we want to play,” he said. “We were chasing during all of this season, and I do see a great opportunity in this -- being strong at home and the win on the road against Montreal -- I see a great opportunity. The game against LA Galaxy is either going to be a confirmation, or we will have to adjust again. It’s a great momentum, it’s a great part of the season, and we have to take advantage of this catalyst that is the game against Montreal that we had.”
Much like what they saw in Montreal, the Fire will look to contain a slew of renowned players when they lineup across from the Galaxy midweek. Paunovic’s defense stifled Impact playmakers Didier Drogba and Ignacio Piatti, and will play for a similar outcome against the likes of LA's Steven Gerrard, Giovani dos Santos and Robbie Keane.
“Our approach is always that we prepare one game at a time,” he said. “We don’t know about them. We don’t know about that. We always prepare with our best guys. Of course we will see the adjustments they do, but we have to wait until before the game starts when we get the lineups. We will prepare for the best team that we will have in front (of us). We know that they have a lot of very good players and we know that it’s going to be tough.”
While this momentum wave crests, Paunovic notes that it’s important not to dwell too much on past results, but rather apply their lessons learned to the next challenge.
“We are not looking back,” he said. “We are just looking forward. We want to take advantage of this momentum. I think this is what we were looking for and working hard for during the whole season, and we want to use this as a catalyst, as an important boost for us so our guys now work harder, they’re motivated like we all are from the staff and from the club, and I think it’s a fantastic momentum that we have at this point.”
