CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 23, 2022

Ezra Hendrickson

Press Conference

Minnesota 3, Chicago Fire FC 0

Q. Do you think there's a lack of communication amongst the attacking part of the lineup, because a couple of occasions, looks like there was an action to pass to fun on the flank but whoever had the ball decided to shoot instead.

EZRA HENDRICKSON: I don't think there's a lack of communication. I thought maybe just we made some bad decisions tonight, especially in the first half. You know, we have opportunities, like you said, to play a guy who may be in a better position, and we chose to do otherwise with the ball. So these are things that we have to look at this game again and talk about it and discuss it with the team because we need to improve going forward.

I thought especially in the first half, when we defended and we won the ball, we just gave it away too easily, sometimes not even under pressure. So we weren't very clinical. We weren't very technical on the night. But these are things we can improve and we just have to keep working.

Q. What do you see on that second yellow card on Federico?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, I haven't got a chance to look at it yet but I thought maybe he was a little quick. The fact that he was carrying another yellow, but I have to look at it again before I could even comment on that.

At the end of the day, we shouldn't put ourselves in that position to have to make that tackle. So we can't really blame the refs for anything tonight. I thought once we went down a man, it changed the game, because you're on the road trying to play a man down just like we it in Orlando, and it's very difficult. Our two losses have come when we've had to play short, and that's difficult to do, especially on the road.

Q. You subbed Kacper and Shaq before the end of the game, was that because they were tired or something else?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, Shaq, we have to be careful. He's just coming back from injury. He's been out two, three weeks now. We knew coming into the game, he couldn't play 90. We were expecting maybe 60, 765 but once they scored, we tried to keep him on the field, because he's a guy who is possibly going to get us a goal. But after a while, it's the risk versus reward: Do we keep him out there and risk him re-injuring that calf or do we just try to go to someone else.

And as far as Kacper, we wanted to give Durán run and see if maybe he can get us something we could defend and get behind with his space, but it just didn't happen on the night for us.