CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

June 22, 2024

Fabian Herbers

Press Conference

Orlando City 4, Chicago Fire FC 2

Q. Tough result tonight. It feels like the team was getting shot on shot on shot but wasn't able to get enough goals to get a result at the end. Second year in a row that the team has not won in Orlando, but then after that last year, they bounced back and got a number of wins. What's the message in the locker room like tonight to try to get results with the upcoming matches on the road?

FABIAN HERBERS: Yeah, I think overall, I don't think we played that bad today. I think the first 20 minutes, Orlando maybe caught us off-guard a little bit, you know, where they had two chances and scored three goals, I felt like.

So you know, and if you start on the back foot, it's always going to be tough. But I feel like I need to credit the effort of the team, came back and kept creating chances. We even had chances for five, six goals but unfortunately not all of them went in. We still fought to the end. Credit to the group.

But yeah, if you start like that on the road, it's always going to be tough.

Q. Switching a little bit, tonight was Mauricio's 100th start in a Fire uniform. You're the longest-serving member of the Fire. What do you think it means to him, and what do you think it means to the club to have a homegrown player get a hundred starts in a Fire uniform?

FABIAN HERBERS: Yeah, it shows how good the academy is. It's growing. We have more and more people coming out; we saw it with Gaga, Guti, Brady. You have a lot of young talent in and around Chicago, and if the club can capitalize on that and make them work and earn those starts -- it's not like those caps are just given. They are hard workers and very good players.

Overall I think the club is heading into the right direction in terms of that, and congrats to Mauricio. It's a good achievement.

Q. It looked like it was about 1,000 degrees in Orlando today. It's been hot in Chicago. How much do you think that affects the team's performance, and how much does it affect the way that you guys feel on the pitch, especially when you go down early as you did in a game like today?

FABIAN HERBERS: Yeah, it's always going to be an uphill battle. To be fair, it wasn't as hot as maybe I felt it in previous years in Orlando. Maybe at kickoff time it was still hot, but the temperature dropped a little bit.

So I felt like it was an okay day for Orlando, but obviously the whole team is used to play in the heat. They play in that all year and they know how to approach the game, and maybe they caught us on the back foot coming into that game where we were chasing a little bit in the first 15, 20 minutes.

Obviously they scored one beautiful goal with Torres on that side. You know, those chances fall in early in the game, it plays into their hand against us.

So yeah, it was hot. You know, summer is always hot in the U.S. There's no excuse or whatever. If you go down that early, it's going to be tough to come back, but I still think we did a good job in terms of keeping and moving the ball.