CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 10, 2020

Francisco Calvo

Press Conference

Q. Francisco, I was wondering if you could just talk a little about how the preparation in general has been altered this season? First, you obviously have played a couple matches, and then shut down for months on end, and now you're living in a bubble, of course. How has the physical preparation changed by switching groups, and then mentally how has the preparation changed with all the stuff that's gone on in the past week?

FRANCISCO CALVO: Yeah, it's been tough. It's been tough because I said at first -- after preseason, we played obviously two games, and then they shut down the league for like three months.

But I'm pretty sure all my teammates -- all my teammates at home made the word that the fitness coach sent to us. When we come back, everybody were in really good shape. So that made me feel calm about that situation.

About all this situation here in Orlando, I think we are just concentrating on the training, and that's all, what is coming for us.

Q. I guess for elite athletes, consistency and predictability with times and body clocks is important, so how do you adjust to this situation when you have two morning games and a night games, and it's going to be really, really hot most likely when you're playing? How do you deal with that?

FRANCISCO CALVO: It's hard. It's not a secret that playing at 9:00 A.M. is not easy, but we just need to do what we can control, which is make a good preparation, drink a lot of water, a lot of supplements given to us by the coaching staff.

My only opinion about that is I'm not complaining about if they move us or not in the groups because we don't care about that. The only thing is that the league didn't give us anything. I think we deserve a little bit, at least play at 9:00, you know, because they just move us and that's it.

That's okay. We are just going to go and play and try to make it good and try to -- and try to beat Seattle, try to beat San Jose and Vancouver.

Q. What's life been like for you and your teammate living in this quarantine bubble? How are people feeling? How are people getting by? What kinds of things are you doing outside of training?

FRANCISCO CALVO: I feel the team really, really well. Everybody is happy. I would love to invite you to our trainings, because all the time it's about atmosphere, excellent coaching staff, and what they bring to us.

Besides that, we have ping-pong, we have PlayStation. We try to do some different things. Also, you have to rest because you're training in the morning sometimes, and you need to rest. Now we are like three, four days away from our first game.

Q. Have you guys watched any of the matches so far? If so, what was your impression from those games, and how similar do you expect your opponents to be now to where they were before for what you've scouted them on in the past?

FRANCISCO CALVO: Yeah, I've been watching all the games, yes. Just New York/Philadelphia the second half, we couldn't watch it.

In the beginning, it's hard. You watch the Miami/Orlando, sometimes a slow game. It was the first game in this whole tournament. It's tough. Then when you watch New York/Philadelphia getting better and better, and yesterday I think Montréal/New England, it was -- it was okay.

But the opponents, we know Seattle. We played them before. I think we did a really good game against them. Unlucky we lost almost in the last minute, but we just need to -- we know how to play them, and we are not afraid of anybody in this tournament or in this league.

Q. What's kind of been -- I asked Brandt this, as well. What's been like the mood in the camp as the negative news comes in, and you hear about Dallas and Nashville dropping out? What are the conversations like within the team as things have changed throughout all this process?

FRANCISCO CALVO: Well, we know that our first opponent that we -- it was Nashville; we hear some guys are positive. First of all, we are sorry because we don't want to be in their shoes. It's not easy to be in that situation, and we totally understand.

I mean, but then when you are like in hold, waiting, what you're going to do if you're going to be moved to another group; if you're going to play against Miami in the beginning because it was Miami Tuesday, then they changed us to the group, you know, it's not easy.

But now that we know, we just have our minds in the first game. That's all we have.

Q. So you haven't experienced playing in international tournaments since the format of MLS Is Back is kind of like an international tournament. How will you lean on that experience and what can you teach the younger guys who don't have that experience of playing in a tournament setting?

FRANCISCO CALVO: Yeah, what I can say is everybody needs to be ready. Everybody need to be ready because the coach is going to need from every single player in our team.

Short tournaments are -- because you have to play game by game, game by game you have to go. We have seven games -- to get the first final on Tuesday, so we are going to go game by game. You have to focus and then you have three, four, whatever, five days to prepare your next game, and you have to, you know, play, recovery, play, recovery. And how I said, the guys who are not playing, just be ready because in one moment they can change the game.

Q. There's a report today that that's a positive case with Sporting Kansas City. It seems like all of the cases thus far were maybe brought into the bubble, but if there was a situation where COVID cases starting spreading within the bubble, how would that make you feel? Is that something you would be concerned about or not; you'd just go about your day and hope for the best?

FRANCISCO CALVO: Yeah, it's sad, these situations, and hopefully they recover soon, if they have it. I mean, there isn't anything we can do. We are here now. We are not going to leave the bubble right now. So then the doctors and the specialists in this situation, they are going to make the decisions. We just -- I'm going to keep saying: We are just going to be concentrating on what we are doing, and that's all.

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