CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 11, 2024

Arnaud Souquet

Press Conference

Q. Curious, when you guys go against Red Bull the last three times, it's been tougher to score goals against them. Curious, what have you seen against that team, now that you've gone against them three times before, and just kind of what's been -- they made it difficult for you guys to score?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: I know in football is difficult to score every game, especially against Red Bull, maybe our style of football is different. They press a lot. Maybe they change a little this year, but last year was a difficult game.

Now every game is difficult and we need to give more for the fans to give a good result because it's too long a time we don't win. Now it's important to score and don't concede too much goals to win the games, especially at home.

Q. You've been getting a lot of starts over the past few months but it's been in a different role a lot of the time than what you were playing last season. So how do you find the shift and how do you think your role has changed?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: I think as a staff, want to change the system because of the beginning of the season we start four back and maybe they want more specific guy on the right side with more speed and more athletic qualification.

After ten or 11 games, I need to change to play five in the back, especially with three guys, they can build. And I can help the team because I have the quality to realize the urgent passes to help the team get in a good direction. That's now why I am playing good and after a different game, I think I play good, too, so the staff will be happy with my performance.

So now that's why I stay in the team but I'm not satisfied because we don't win a lot of games, and for me it's very special. Because I come here to win something, to help the club to grow and to answer the expectation of the fans. I understand they are angry; the players, too, and we need to give everything for the last six games because it's important for the players and everybody to finish strong and everything can happen in football. We need to be focused for the next game. We play sometimes good, sometimes bad but we don't need to concede too much goals. It's important for the next game to be focused on where we are good, to score, and leave everything on the field for the end of the game and have a good results.

Q. As a defender, especially this late in the year, legs are tired and as the season comes to winding down, is it more of a mental game? It's been such a long season. How do you prepare game-in, game-out? Is it more of a mental focus to keep going even though your body might be feeling the whole season's work? Curious how you sort of prepare differently as you approach sort of the end stages of the season and of course a time that's really important in a season?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: I think when you are a professional soccer player, you need to have a lot of qualities for sure on the field with skill, with technique, with physically. But the most important part of the job is especially mentally, and we need to be strong mentally because everything can happen in a game. Everything can happen in the season. That's why I'm not happy right now because we have the quality, we have almost everything to become a good club, a big club in MLS. We are giving everything for the club.

Players sometimes we miss some moments in a game because we may be just let the game leading and at the hard moment, we need to be more proactive to fight and sometimes, again, change.

But that's why the mental part of the job is important for me, and especially for me with my season, too. I'm always fighting and I always try to play and train hard to play and help the team. So that's why now I'm playing a lot of game.

But that's why I'm feeling for the club. Sometimes we miss something mentally and we need to be focused 90 minutes. Okay, sometimes we are up, sometimes we go down. But when you go down, you need to stay like team and be strong, and for sure, the result will change.

Q. Curious, I feel like every time I'm in training, I see you walking in with Hugo, curious what that relationship has been like building over the year other than a nice guy to talk French with?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: Yes, with the French, for sure. But he's a striker. I'm the right back. But I'm playing sometimes right back a lot. This year I play center back but sometimes I can cross. And I need to have a good relationship with all the guys, the forward guys because sometimes when I cross, I would like to know if he prefer ball in the first post, second post, in the air, on the floor and I need to adapt my cross to his movement, and it's difficult in football to do things at the same time at the same moment to score. Because to the defender is okay, but to score is the most difficult part of the football game.

That's why I talk a lot with Hugo, and we are both players, we play in Europe. So we have the same analysis about what is working, what is not working in the team, and we need to help the other player to become the better player.

Q. Did you reach out to anyone from your time at Gent when he arrived?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: No. He arrived one year after me. So we didn't play together, no.

Q. We talked to Frank about the importance of avoiding individual mistakes in general and on defense, but you mentioned your quality on both sides of the ball and your responsibilities defensively and also to contribute with the offense. Against a team like the Red Bulls, do you feel more added pressure to join the offense and get the goal going in or to make sure that you're taking care of all the defensive responsibilities because they can punish mistakes?

ARNAUD SOUQUET: I think all the team finish all mistakes but for sure against Red Bull if you be strong in the back end, we don't concede goal. We have the quality to score and to create something, but for sure the most important thing is need to be better with the ball. When we don't have the ball and we have to defend and you stay compact to be ready because this team loves to play the ball to the other team and waits for the first mistake to punish us.

So we need to be alert about that, but we have to play our game, too. We cannot just play long ball all the time and waiting. So sometimes, yes, because they press a lot, especially the beginning of the game, but after, we need to be better with the ball and create something like the second half against D.C. was good. But we missed something, and we concede two goals in the first half. If you don't concede, I think we have all the chance. If we remember the first game we play against Red Bull, we have a lot of situation, and I think we can beat this team for sure.