CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

August 13, 2022

Ezra Hendrickson

Press Conference

Philadelphia Union 4, Chicago Fire 1

Q. Just wondering what's the current situation with Gastón Giménez?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Yeah, he felt something in the hamstring, so it doesn't look good. Obviously he couldn't finish out the game. That's a concern and we'll find out more tomorrow. It didn't look good.

Q. Just to follow up on that, if he is out for an extended amount of time, what's the plan then to replace him, because Pineda would generally replace him, is now at center back. What is the plan if he is out for a while?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Yeah, well, we're hoping to have Terán back next weekend. So if that happens, Terán slides back into his center back position, and Mauri comes back into the midfield. But if Terán is not ready, then we have Javi, we have Fabi and we have guys who can play in the midfield alongside Federico.

Q. After that run of five games, eventually all runs come to an end but after a disappointing loss and a challenging schedule ahead, how do you ensure the heads don't drop and that the focus of the group remains on the next games?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, what I told the players after the game is that we have to put this one behind us, and we have had a good run of form and tonight we just didn't show up, and when you don't show up in this league, especially against a team like that, first place in our conference, you know, you're going to pay.

I don't feel like this team is four goals better than us but I thought we gave up some very untimely goals tonight. That second goal hurt a lot and then the third goal, we come out, second half, was able to get one back earlier in the second half and then we let the third one in and that one really, really put us out. Because now we are on the road 3-1 down and trying to come back against a team like that becomes very, very difficult if not impossible. It was a lot of us hurting ourselves but they are a good team.

Like I said, when you don't play well, and you don't show up against a good team, you get punished. Tonight has to be a learning lesson for us but we have to put it past us and get ready for the next game next weekend.

Q. Going back to my question, expanding a little bit, how concerned are you about the depth of this team in the run-in considering some of the injuries that you guys have had the last few weeks?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, when you get injuries, it always can become a problem. You know, I think every team in the League has injuries. We just have to do the best we can with the players that are available and then try to make sure the guys are out return as quickly as possible. We would like to go through the season without injuries but it's just something that happens. But we have the capability of guys filling in for injured players. So we just have to -- whoever steps on the pitch just has to be ready to play moving forward.

Q. What did you make of Jairo Torres performance tonight giving he was starting ahead of Brian Gutierrez, and given his recent injury troubles, would you say he's reached full fitness yet?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: I think he's as close to fit as he's going to be. I don't think any player ever plays fully fit as far as when we're talking about injuries.

He's pretty much over that injury but I thought, you know, when we were able to get him the ball wide and he was able to use his ability 1v1 I thought he was very effective, especially the first half.

What was happening to us as a team is we were not disciplined as far as our spacing so we were not able to move the ball as we normally and possess the ball as easily as we normally do. You know, part being their aggressive nature of defending, but part us just making the field too narrow.

When we were able to get it wide and spread them out and move them from one side to the next, going through Fede and Gastón, I thought we did well. That first goal, that goal that we scored in the second half an example of that. We had them spread out and we were able to move it from one side to the next, get it to Chris, and he was able to go in and finish.

A lot of our discipline, our space and stuff was not there tonight for whatever reason, but that's something that we can fix and that's something that we know that we didn't play and we didn't position ourselves as we normally do.

But we'll fix that and we'll be better going forward.

Q. The second goal, what can Gaga learn from that play?

EZRA HENDRICKSON: Well, I think -- I wasn't a goalie so I can only speculate that he maybe possibly took his eye off the ball or maybe he thought he had it, and as it was coming down, it looked like it hit the post and came off. Just unfortunate. Those things unfortunately sometimes happen. It was a bad time in the game for it to happen. I think if we go in 1-0, then maybe we have a little bit more energy; so now we come out, we tie it and it's 1-1 rather than 2-1.

But, you know, it happens. He came up with some big saves tonight. Like I said, as a team, have to move on from that, very untimely goals that we took tonight but we'll be better for it.