CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 21, 2020

Fabian Herbers

Press Conference

Q. Just wanted to get your take on what you expected differences to be from going from the San Jose match, a man marking team, played at night, to playing against Vancouver, more traditional defensive style, play in the morning.

FABIAN HERBERS: Yeah, it's obviously going to be a little bit different, like you said correctly that, yes, San Jose was a manmarked game, pretty intense team. Seemed pretty fit and chasing us all over the field and did pretty well to give them credit.

Also was a night game, and now going back to early morning, probably expect a little bit lower intensity. But yeah, but expect a little bit more possession. It's important for us that we move the opponent, you know, from side to side and then try to penetrate when we can, when we get the spaces and obviously be good with the ball and don't run into counterattacks, which they do have fast guys up front. So we have to be aware of that.

Q. You mentioned going from the night to the morning games. You have two games under your belt now, how are you feeling physically and what are these recovery periods like for you guys as you try to get ready for those games on such a short turnaround?

FABIAN HERBERS: Physically, we are doing well. I think right now we still -- we are in the second day after the San Jose game right now, so we still are recovering today.

But tomorrow, all the soreness should be gone and we should have a good training session and then be all fresh and ready to go for Vancouver. I think, yeah, I mean, the recovery is shorter, but then -- than the normal weekend game where you have one week to recover all the time.

But I mean, yeah, preparation is shorter, but I think we are doing a good job analyzing the opponent and managing the practices in order to stay, yeah, fresh and ready for the next opponent.

Q. When you are going into a game like this, when you know the opponent is missing as many guys as Vancouver is, what's the mentality and approach? And how do you go about maintaining your intensity even though you know that they are missing all those guys?

FABIAN HERBERS: I don't think it plays too big of a role. I mean, it's still MLS quality. We know what they are about, and we have to win to advance in the group.

So our goal is to get the three points no matter who we are facing. If they are missing some players or not, I think the approach will be the same, and we will analyze the opponent the same way. And yeah, just go out with a winning mentality and yeah, get the three points for the regular season and then advance in the group to make it to the next round, as well, here in the tournament.

Q. What was the spirit of -- or what was said to the locker room after the game after the loss of 2-0? What did the coach say to you and what was the spirit in the locker room after they finished the game?

FABIAN HERBERS: The coach wasn't actually there in the locker room. So he talked to us the next day.

But the spirit was obviously -- we were disappointed but at the same time, kind of knew that we still in the tournament. You know, we are not out. We are still -- obviously we were, yeah, disappointed with the loss but we still have another chance now to make up for it against Vancouver to advance. Therefore,.

I mean, it was kind of a mixed feeling. Obviously you're never happy when you lose but yeah, analyzing the game we didn't think we played that bad. We just have to fix some details and if we do that, I think we'll be -- we'll be good for Vancouver.

Q. The Whitecaps need to win by at least two goals in order to have a chance of going to the next round, with Chicago even a draw gets the Fire to the next round. What kind of tactical game are you expecting on Thursday? Do you think there will be a lot of chances?

FABIAN HERBERS: I could hear the first part of the question but then second part you cut off, so I'm not sure.

Q. Yeah. Just wondering what kind of game you expect it will be because Vancouver needs to win by two goals and even a draw against Chicago gets through.

FABIAN HERBERS: Yeah, I certainly, I think we go -- we are going to the game to win. We wouldn't go with a mindset to a draw could be enough. But we have something like that -- we are going to the game, yeah, to win it.

What Vancouver's situation is, isn't really important to us that much, as we just go, yeah, into it attacking, try to have possession, try to have control over the ball to not give them too much space and opportunities to counterattack us.

So I think the approach would be the same. I think we could be in for a good matchup for sure since both teams have to kind of go for it, but I prefer that we control the game and have the bulk of possession and hopefully get some goals in early to give us an advantage.

Q. You guys have been there for three weeks. Has it gotten easier or harder? Are you going stir crazy? What's it like away from the field down there for you guys?

FABIAN HERBERS: I can say how it is personally for me. I think it gets easier the longer that you are here because we have developed a routine.

Now that the games started, I think the hardest part is when you were training and didn't have a game to look forward to, and then you even get switched in groups and have to wait another couple days. That was probably the hardest part. Now you have the routine where you know every three, four days you have a game coming up it's probably easier. Now, yeah, I think that's my personal approach and I think that the team does feel like that, too. But hopefully we can stay into this tournament.

I saw a couple teams actually packing their suitcases yesterday and were leaving the bubble. We don't want to be a team like that. We want to stay here and we want to go, yeah, possibly to the very end and make it as far as possible.