CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 27, 2025

Jonathan Bamba

Press Conference

Q. It's been five games since you started playing here in MLS. What do you think of the level of play and what surprised you?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's been five games already, and I'm learning every day. Every day is something new. It's incredible. I'm learning about a new tournament, about a new league, and every time we go out, there I learn something new.

So it's been very agreeable. It's quite a surprise. People don't really know, but every time I'm out there, I'm learning something new, so it's been very good.

Q. The front three, how do you think that is working with the pitch as the season goes on?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's working very well, and it's great because they are players with a lot of quality skills, and always easy to play with players who have a lot of quality.

We have not figured out all our tendencies yet, but despite that, we have been scoring a lot of goals, 12 goals in five matches. Philip's scored, Hugo's scored, and we are going to keep scoring.

Q. (On players going to National Team.)

JONATHAN BAMBA: There are a lot of players that left to play with the National Team. So it's a little bit difficult to work like that. But you can see on the field, the players that come in that have a lot of quality, and it's always good to play with players of quality. So even if they have to be replaced or play with different players, you see their quality on the field, and that's a good thing.

It's a good moment right now for the team because we have won three consecutive matches and we need to continue in that way, and it's because we know it's not easy to be winning games like that and what we need is the confidence from our coach, and that's important because we have a lot of players who are very young, and so as long as we get that confidence from our coach, we are going to continue to play like this.

Q. The match against Montréal is going to be difficult. They have not had a great start and they also have a new coach coming in. What are your expectations?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's going to be very difficult, very difficult, because Montréal is going through a difficult moment and they are going to come here to win. We need to keep doing what we have been doing and continue with our processes because that's what's been going well in the past matches.

As long as we can do that and keep the mentality, keep going, we are hopefully going to have a good game at home.

Q. You've had assists but you have not had the goal. How important is it for your confidence to get a goal to your tally in MLS?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's important for me but because I want to help the team, as much as possible. But what's more important is that the team is winning.

So it's always important for a forward to be able to score goals but I think if I keep working with my teammates, little by little, things are going to keep working and the goals are going to come by themselves.

Q. After your first game at Soldier Field, what are your impressions?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's very nice. Unfortunately we were not able to get the victory since at the last moment, D.C. got the goal, and the team had been working hard to win the game.

But it was good because after that game, we turned things around, and I think that it's a great opportunity this weekend to come back and have another good game at Soldier Field.

Q. On the left side, you're playing in front of Andrew Gutman, who is a very attacking fullback. How does that impact your play as a winger, and how do you think you guys complement each other as players in the attack?

JONATHAN BAMBA: It's very easy to play with Andrew. It's very easy to play with him because he's a great player, and we also have a lot of communication, a lot of communication on the field, so that we can complement each other well. And he's also the type of player that I really love to play with because he's very attacking.

I think that we both have to continue playing in this way so that we can both help the team as much as possible, and that way we can make sure that the Fire hit the high levels in the rankings.

Q. What difference have you noticed in MLS from La Liga?

JONATHAN BAMBA: The differences, La Liga, it's much more tactical and much more a game of positions and having that movement.

I find that MLS is a bit more physical and a game of more transition, more goals, more spectacle. But it's great because it's faster and you score a lot of goals that way, and as an attacking player, I really like that because I want to score a lot of goals.

So I'm really happy to be here in this league and just happy to be here.