CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 24, 2021

Raphael Wicky

Press Conference

Atlanta United 3, Chicago Fire 1

Q. Does conceding five goals in two games make you reconsider any changes to your back five or your tactics?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Four, you mean.

Q. Goalkeeper, too, on the back line.

RAPHAEL WICKY: That's tough one right now directly after the game. Look, I have to see who is going to be healthy, who is back. Carlos is now slowly coming back. We hope he can have a good full week of training next week. Yeah, hopefully some other guys come back and then we'll see.

Right now, directly after the game, I'm not saying this is the team who is playing the next game. There may be changes but I have to see who is available.

Q. In a game that was screaming out for an attacking sub, you didn't use any. I'm sure if Nacho or Elliot have been available, you would have used them. But why don't you opt for an Alex Monis or Javi Casas, someone like that?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Yeah, Javi Casas is a center midfielder. He's not an offensive player.

And Alex Monis, right now, in this game, I didn't think he's ready to step in there and help us. That's the only thing. He's 17 years old, 18 years old. He doesn't have any games in this league. That's the reason. That's the reason why I kept going with this group, and didn't stop.

Q. So what happened in the second goal? What did you see and what were you told by the players there? Have you discussed what happened on that goal?

RAPHAEL WICKY: No, I haven't spoken with the players yet. I have seen it. I think first we need to put more pressure on the ball on the side, not to let them cross. We can do better there and then in the middle, yeah, I mean, if Bobby comes out, Bobby need to clear that ball. If he wouldn't come out, then we need a center back there. I think they were, there, but I haven't spoken to them so that's what I saw and, yeah, that's obviously then in that moment of the game, a tough one.

Q. At times it felt like the team was playing narrow. Was that part of the tactics or something that happened throughout course of the match?

RAPHAEL WICKY: How do you mean, "narrow"?

Q. At times it felt like when Boris Sekulic would make an overlapping run, for example, he would be coming from a little bit more of a central position, and we saw Chinonso and Frankowski tuck in a lot more than we expect for guys playing wide.

RAPHAEL WICKY: No, we knew that they have this man marking system, more or less man marking. We wanted to create space, either come in side and create spaces for a fullback to overlap or like that.

That was one of the things we wanted to do. Chinonso naturally is more of a nine, more of a player who is more inside, better inside, feels more comfortable. That's why he often comes inside as well.

And the other point is that we didn't run both fullbacks at the same time going very high and wide, running into counterattacks, yeah, otherwise there's no other reason for that.

Q. Tough to speak of after a 3-1 loss, but any positives you take away from tonight?

RAPHAEL WICKY: If you're asking from positive, we have chances. We have chances. We hit, I think, the post or the crossbar three times. Yeah, we had our chance.

But we know, this is a tough opponent and a tough place to play so we knew if you want to come here and make a point or have a win, you've got to suffer and not make the easy mistakes. So we knew that coming in here.

But yeah, look, when you lose 3-1, can you not be happy, especially with the way you concede the goals. Yeah, we keep working. We keep working, moving forward and that's the only thing to do and that's the only way to go.

Q. Aliseda and Navarro were not available tonight even though they were last week. What happened with them? Did they have injury setbacks or is there another reason they were not on the game day roster?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Yeah, Navarro still has problems with his ankles. Yeah, he wasn't training with the team this week. After the game last week in New England, he felt more pain even though he only played 15 minutes so we took him out.

And Nacho has again a little bit of a hamstring problem. Yeah, we hope it's not too bad. Yeah, that's the reason.