CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 18, 2021

Alvaro Medran

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: We'll take questions for Alvaro.

Q. How would you compare your first here in MLS to your experience in Spain? Have you taken it upon yourself to be some kind of a leader with so many young guys in the team?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) Before anything else, it's really nice to see all of you and hear from all of you today. I will do my best to hopefully by the end of the year be able to do an interview in English so that Elizabeth doesn't have to be here translating for me the whole time.

But, yes, it's true that we have a very young team. I find myself as part of the older group or somewhere in the middle. I will do my best to help the younger players, lead them, bring my experience from the Spanish league here and show the young players that to be able to get to a high level, it's a serious job, it's not easy, it's hard work. We'll work together with the older players to show the youngsters how important it is to take your job seriously. Hopefully we can teach them and they can learn from us.

Q. I know you had to be in Orlando in quarantine because of the passport issue for a week while your teammates were out there training. How hard was that? How good did it feel to finally get back out there this week?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) The good thing is that one week isn't as bad or as long as all that time that was spent in the off-season, which was almost four months. It wasn't so bad. What I tried to do was train on my own and work hard so that when I got back with the team, I wouldn't be so far behind and be able to start right away at the same rhythm.

Q. You got your Green Card recently. Congratulations on that. Do you feel like you view Chicago as your long-term home for your career? You haven't had a ton of stability in your career. What would it mean to you to be able to settle somewhere and play for the same team for a few straight seasons?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) Thank you so much for your kind words about the Green Card.

Yeah, it's true that I haven't had the stability that I would have liked in my career. Chicago is really showing me that. I feel really good here in this club. Chicago has shown me that they appreciate me, feel good about me here, as well. So hopefully the two parts together with work together so there can be many more years of my career here in Chicago.

I will do my best to give what I can for the club, and hopefully that will translate into many more years together.

Q. (Through translation.) For this upcoming game on the weekend, what parts of your game are you trying to exploit or demonstrate on Saturday? As far as the upcoming season, what goals do you have for yourself in your second MLS season?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) This is my first pre-season game after four months of not playing, so I don't have any objectives besides getting into the rhythm of the competition, getting minutes and preparing my legs for the upcoming season so that I can be ready for when the season starts.

For this season, well, upcoming, I will try to do better than last season. I have the goal of playing more, really bring forth my best for the team. I'm going to do my best to put myself out there, get more goals, get more assists.

Last year I was able to play all of the games, which was really important for me. This year, that's another goal, to play every game, not get injured, and just get myself on the board with more goals and more assists.

Q. Your first year in the league, what do you feel you learned the most? How do you plan to build on that going into year two as you try to get more settled in your club and the league overall?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) Before I came here, I already knew that it was a very competitive league with very good players. Coming over here just served to prove my point of what I had already known.

I learned that my team and I have to be very focused and very concentrated throughout the whole 90 minutes of the game. It's something we didn't do so much last year. We really have to just be focused and be in the game the whole time.

Really that's the thing I learned the most, that in any moment at any given game they can score on us. We just have to be together and be focused. That's something I learned last year that I will be able to put together this year. This year it's going to serve so that we're a better team than we were last season.

Q. You've been here for a while now. One thing you have not done yet is play in front of fans at Soldier Field. It has to be strange you've been in Chicago for a while and you haven't actually played for the fans. It looks like it's going happen, what will it look like to finally see some people in the stands there?

ALVARO MEDRAN: (Through translation.) It will be incredible. There really isn't another word for it. A lot of times I had thought about the two goals I scored last year at Soldier Field, which were nice goals. I thought about what it would have been like if there had been fans there.

We had already played some games in other stadiums, in other cities, like Kansas and Orlando, with some fans in the stands. You could feel the difference in the atmosphere.

So I think with the great stadium that we have, it will just be amazing to have fans in the stadium, in the stands. I think it's extra motivation for the team. I really hope it will be able to happen this year, hopefully from the very beginning.