CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 19, 2021

Raphael Wicky

Press Conference

Columbus Crew 2, Chicago Fire 0

Q. Why was Robert Beric not in the starting 11?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Robert was gone in the break. Robert was gone for about -- almost two weeks. He had to go to Europe for his visa. So was Luka Stojanovic; he was also gone for about a week, eight days. That's part of the reason why I choose to go with guys who were here for the entire three weeks, and the other reason that we have a lot of games. We have a lot of games coming up. We need everyone, and those are the reasons and why I choose today to go without Luka in the beginning and without Robert.

Q. Moving on to the match, did you get any explanation for why there was no red card on he teen? I thought once it went to VAR, there might be, but did you get an explanation and what did you see on the incident?

RAPHAEL WICKY: No, I didn't get an explanation. I mean, I was right there. Look, I don't want to look for excuses. But for me, I don't know what you have to do in order to get a red card. He was going right into the face of the player, voluntary. It wasn't that he had to turn around or he didn't see the guy. He went into his face and pushed him away.

I don't know what else you have to do. But, they took the decision not to give him red. You have to ask the referee why. I just think that if we want to educate kids, if you want to educate young people to do sports, fair play, then we cannot show images like that and not sanction them. If we say, okay, this is good, you can do this, this is just a yellow, you can go into another player's face voluntarily, then I think we are on the wrong path.

But saying that, we didn't show up for a big part of the first half. That's why I say I'm not looking for excuses. This for me is a fact. But then there were reasons why we were 2-0 down at halftime, as well.

Q. Did you some things well tonight. You dominated possession and created 14 shots, although none on goal and 82 percent pass completion. The no-shots-on-goal thing stands out. How can you play well in so many areas and get nothing on target and what's it going to take to finally fix this?

RAPHAEL WICKY: First of all, I haven't seen any stats and I'm not right now in the stats. I'm disappointed with big parts of our first half. We started quite well. But then suddenly we lost in my eyes a little bit of the passion, a little bit of the fire, a little bit of the urgency to win duos to winning challenges and winning second balls and that's the base of football. That was the message at halftime. We can talk tactics as long as you want but we have to do the dirty work first.

And I missed the first half for a part of the first half, the basics of football, the basics of the game. That's to run, that's to fight, that's to win the duos and the second balls.

Yeah, then we showed an okay and good reaction. The second half we played some good football. We create some chances. The final product is just at the end of the day in these moments not good enough and we have to work on that. We have to keep working on that. But it wasn't good enough. It wasn't precise enough. You have to be precise. The last pass has to be precise. Your shot has to be precise and your decision-making has to be better or precise. That's I think what is missing. That's why the stats are often look good but right now it doesn't go into results.

So if we can fix that, I think we make results. But first of all we need to fix that we fight for the teammate, 90 minutes, not 45, not 60, but 90 minutes in every duo.

Q. How is there a breakdown on that play?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Yeah, that shouldn't happen. There wasn't pressure on the ball, so we shouldn't have a high line, and then we should probably drop and first of all we should have more pressure on the ball so it shouldn't happen.

I have seen the clip and it's very, very close. Again, it's very, very close to the off-side, but they have checked, so I'm not going against that. But it's very, very close. I think one of their strikers and their winger have a countermovement where Francisco first follows. That's why there is a little bit of a breakdown but obviously that's very, very easy to concede a goal.

Q. You get to have a four-game homestand. And you're playing Wednesday night a fairly weak opponent in FC Cincinnati. This is your best opportunity to get a win this season. How important is it to come out, forget about this game and get a result Wednesday?

RAPHAEL WICKY: It's very important. I always told you, we take game by game. Now the next, the most important game is the Wednesday game. But if we go with the mindset that this is will be an easy game because they are also struggling, then we are on the wrong foot because I don't think that's the right mindset we can have. We cannot allow to not take anyone serious. I mean, that's for sure something we will talk to the players; that we are obviously taking every opponent serious and that's what we are going to do. I think it's very important that mentally you're ready, not thinking that, okay, now we have home games or we have a opponent who struggles and it's going to be easy.

We have to analyze that tomorrow, talk about our game from tonight tomorrow in training and quickly prepare for Wednesday and be ready. That's a good thing that we now have a lot of games and during that much time in between to think.

Q. What did you see from Carlos and what kind of learning experience was this in that atmosphere against that good a team?

RAPHAEL WICKY: Yeah, look, you could see in the beginning that he didn't play for a while, almost three months now. I think he had his preseason game in March and he was a long time injured and he didn't really play. He needed some time to come in, but after that, I think he showed what he will bring us. He showed his aggressiveness. He showed his strength in the air and he showed his strength in defending.

I think he needs games and rhythm, and then I think we can have a very interesting, very good defender in our team. But again, first half, you need a little bit of time.