CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

May 22, 2022

Ezra Hendrickson

Press Conference

New York City 1, Chicago Fire FC 0

Q. Just wondering what you saw from the team, what you thought of the performance today.

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, I didn't think this was one of our better performances this year. Normally, even in our losses, our previous losses, I thought, you know, we were in the game a bit. But I thought tonight, we just -- we turned the ball over a lot and we were forced to defend a lot and that's not -- that's very difficult to do, and in these conditions, that type of hot weather, it becomes difficult for you. So I thought we suffered from that.

Q. Wondering what you thought of the hand ball, if you thought it was unlucky or a good call?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: I haven't seen it yet. So I can't really comment on it but it's a difficult one. What I do think is that he got pushed in the back a little bit, and when you get pushed like that, your body just naturally, your arms go up like that and I don't think he was trying to put his hand up to say -- to stop the ball from going towards the goal. The call was made and here we are.

Q. How did you think Gabriel Slonina responded to his last couple games? And I saw you intervene with the situation with Shaqiri and Johnson. What was going on there?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: I thought Gaga responded well. He was called upon a couple times and he had some good saves, but we expected that. He's just 18 and we know that he's a very good goalkeeper and we expected that he would rebound this way.

As far as Sean and Shaq, I don't really know what was happening. I just saw them jar at each other, so I just went over there to try to break it up. I'm not sure what transpired or why they were going at each other.