CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 7, 2020

Raphael Wicky

Press Conference

Sporting KC 1, Chicago Fire 0

Q. What's the takeaway from this match tonight, at least in your opinion?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Look, I think overall, we made a good match. Sporting KC is one of the top teams. They play together since long time, the same coach, they have a lot of continuity.

We were here, and we didn't deserve to lose. We could have taken this game, so I'm taking that the team put a lot of effort in there. Created some chances. Obviously we talk the same after the game, we lose, it's the same. We have to convert those.

On the road, you're not going to get six, seven, eight, hundred percent chances like we had, two or three, and that was the difference. They had that one set piece where they score and we were not able to score. But overall, again a lot of politics, we have to take that. It hurts right now, a lot. Players, as well, they are inside; their heads are down. But tomorrow we have to get up and keep moving forward and keep working and take the positives out of that.

Q. How much was Gastón missed in the field tonight, and how would you assess Mauricio stepping into that role we saw him playing at the beginning of the season?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Mauricio played center back.

Q. Sorry, yeah.

RAPHAEL WICKY: So of course we miss Gastón. I mean, Gastón is a very special player. Gastón is one of the top midfielders in this league, and of course we miss him. But doesn't really make sense to talk about him too much. He's not here. We knew he's not going to be here for a while. We need to find other solutions.

I think BB stepped in. BB had a good game, did a great job. He hasn't played since a long time, but he did well. But I also -- you have to understand, I don't ask, for example, from the player who steps into that position to do the same as Gastón does. I didn't ask BB to do the same. I asked BB to bring what BB to could bring, and he did a great job there. Overall still we had good moments in our game.

Like I said, a player like Gastón is difficult to replace, but we need to find other solutions, and we will.

Q. You gave another run out today to Johan Kappelhof who seems to be getting stronger and stronger. Is he ready to start at this point or is that still a ways away?

RAPHAEL WICKY: That's difficult to say. Johan was out from seven months. He only started training with us full-time, like he maybe had four or five team trainings because right now, we don't train much.

To start -- I can tell you now, it's day-by-day. We have to see how he feels. We have to see how he feels after these efforts, after hard training. When we have hard training, we always have to see how he feels.

Then, yeah, with the schedule we have, yeah, maybe at one point, we have to throw him. In but his health is always most important, and that's why it's day-by-day and we have to see how he feels.