CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 17, 2024

Wyatt Ormsby

Press Conference

Chicago Fire FC 1, Cincinnati 0

Q. Going up against a number one team in the east, they had a few guys missing but still getting a win at their own stadium and you have a big game coming up this weekend. What does this result do for the confidence for everyone?

WYATT ORMSBY: It's huge. We know they are one of the best teams in the League, not just the east. But we talked a little about they lost a couple games at home this year. We look at it as a midweek game, a tough game but a game we can get a result, a winnable game. Really proud of the effort everyone put in. It.

Was not easy at times but a full 90-minute commitment from everybody and yeah, huge result to push us into Saturday, another big game and then we have League's Cup. But yeah, huge for the momentum of the group right now.

Q. It seemed like the defense tonight was really backs to the wall, seemed like you were throwing bodies in front of everything. Is there a sense of urgency before League's Cup to try to get these results?

WYATT ORMSBY: Yeah, I think we knew it wasn't going to be easy, like I said. It's a good team. I'm sure they are missing a couple players but we are, too. So I think we knew it was going to take a full commitment from everybody, at times not going to be super pretty. I think at times we were not great with the ball but good teams find ways to win games like this, midweek game way from home, good team.

So that's a huge statement win from us and the commitment to defending was for all 90 minutes, especially late in the game, just doing whatever it takes to win the game. So it's a big boost for us.

Q. Moving to you personally, you weren't really getting that many minutes earlier in the season. This is like I think four starts in a row. How does it feel to get out there and to be getting regular starts again?

WYATT ORMSBY: Yeah, it's really good. It's still great to get back out on the field. It was a pretty long hiatus there without seeing much time but I just kind of stayed the course. I kept working hard, and I knew at some point, it's a long season. At some point, the team is going to need me to step up and feel like we've done pretty well the last couple games.

Great for me to get some minutes. Huge win tonight, and hopefully we can keep this momentum rolling.

Q. Two shutouts in a row now and back five seems more solid. Other than learning a new system, what do you think has changed recently defensively?

WYATT ORMSBY: Not a whole lot. I think we have just been working really hard and I think our commitment to defending, especially away from home tonight, we are not going to have the ball as much as we might at home.

But you know, just being hard to break down and just being really tough, I think everybody has been really tough defensively, and just committed to working hard for 90 minutes. They had a couple chances. Chris came up huge for us but good teams are going to get chances on you. Chris was huge, and everybody from the front to the back played well tonight I felt like.

Q. The goal with 20 minutes left, seeing that hustle play from Hugo, does that galvanize the group?

WYATT ORMSBY: Definitely. I think at that point in the game we were looking for something. We had a couple of chances, and it was just big to put a goal in the back of the net. It was like, all right, we can kind of see out the last 30 minutes and find a way to win the game.

Like I said, going up 1-0 with 30 minutes left, it's like, let's dig our heels in, figure out a way to win this game, and we did that tonight.