Frank Klopas, Chicago Fire Interim Head Coach
Thoughts on the match:
“Obviously we knew it was going to be a very difficult match. Colorado is a very good team. They’re very organized, they have a lot of pace, they have a lot of quality players. We knew that every one of our players needed to step up and play with a lot of intensity and play for 90 minutes. I knew we were going to come out and play well because all of the work that’s been done in training during the week. The guys were sharp, the mentality was good. The guys are not happy with where the team is so this was a big game for us. We have a long way to go so it’s a good victory.”
On team’s improvement:
“The thing is, we played a great game for 90 minutes. Every time we train and play matches we get better. We just have to keep going. It’s one game. The guys are not satisfied and I know this is behind us. We have to look at this match and look at the good things and the things we need to improve upon. We have another game on Tuesday. It’s a great opportunity to put ourselves in a position to win a championship.”
On Pavel Pardo’s performance:
“Pardo is a very good person to play the pivot guy. He’s good at connecting the back line and the midfield. He’s a very experienced guy, organizes the team very well. At the half Pardo was feeling bit of a strain in his calf. Knowing we have the game on Tuesday, we didn’t want to push it. We’ll see tomorrow and evaluate it. He’s an important part of our team. He’s very experienced and brings different qualities to our team: he’s very good with the ball and is able to connect the back line with the midfield. He’s a great leader. The guys look at his work ethic and how he goes about training. He’s definitely helped us a lot.”
On U.S. Open Cup Semi-Final on Tuesday at TOYOTA PARK:
“We’re playing at home. It’s the kind of tournament that you see big upsets like that all over the world. We can’t underestimate any opponent. I saw Richmond when they played Kansas City and they were very organized. We have to prepare to play for a full 90 minutes. It’s a good thing that we’re playing at home in front of our fans. This is a tournament that we take very seriously. It’s been one of our goals since the beginning of the season to put ourselves in the position to win the U.S. Open Cup. We have a great opportunity on Tuesday. We will focus and prepare over the next few days. This late in the season it’s all about recovery. This next match is not going to be easy.”
On the team’s defensive effort:
“The first half we gave away a lot of set pieces. Going into the game I wanted to commit numbers forward in a big game, and limit the opportunities for them. I thought we gave up way too many corners in the first half. Overall I thought the marking was very good in the box. The defending starts in the top with the forwards. Patrick and Dominic worked very hard off the ball. We worked tactically very hard to pressure these guys over the past couple days. It was a whole team effort. Sean played well with confidence.”
Dominic Oduro, Chicago Fire forward
On his goal:
“It was a great ball played to me by Pardo. Before the game he said to look out for him and that anytime he saw me with space he was going to play the ball to me. I think it was a great goal, it made our confidence go up a little bit, we earned three more points and we’re ready to go for the next game.”
On making the playoffs:
“As far as hope for the playoffs, we believe we can still make it. We’re still playing hard and trying to win games and are trying to make it into the playoffs.”
On the team’s confidence:
“My confidence in us has always been up, it never went down. Obviously we’ve been tying games a lot, but I don’ think the team’s confidence went down, we were just frustrated; but along the way we were really playing well.”
On the result:
“We have two wins in a row. I’m not saying that we’re happy right now, we only have four wins on he whole season, but right now we just take the positives from the game, take those into the next game and hopefully get a few wins at home and on the road, and then we’ll see where we stand on the table.”
Patrick Nyarko, Chicago Fire forward
On the result:
“I think this is nothing over the top, we expect to win games. It’s just unfortunate things have not gone our way so far. Looking back on the season, there are patches where we didn’t play well. But most of the season we played some good football, but a bounce here or there hasn’t gone our way so we had ties instead of wins. It’s all starting to come together now. We’re happy about the victories, but we’re not exactly accomplished yet, it’s just two games. We’re hoping to go on a run and get back into the playoff picture. We’ll celebrate this tonight and then move onto Tuesday because we have a big game coming up. This is what we expect from this team and it’s all starting to come together.”
On Tuesday’s game:
“Confidence wise it’s good coming into the game with two home victories. We’re playing the semi-final at home and we have great incentive to go out there play well, perform and go on to the Final of the U.S. Open Cup. After the trials and tribulations of this season, we’re going to go out there and try and win a trophy.”
On going forward:
“Our coach is telling us to take one game at a time and I think guys are concentrating on the next game – working hard for 90 minutes, getting some victories and hopefully something good will come of it.”
Cory Gibbs, Chicago Fire Defender:
On the result:
“I think we’ve been playing as a team and we’ve just been unfortunate early on in the season, but now it’s all just coming together. But we can’t live off these two wins and we have to keep pushing. “
On momentum:
“The wins help, but we can’t rely on that. There have been a lot of games that we tied in the past, that we should have won, and these are games that we get rewarded for it. But we can’t rely on that, today’s win came off of hard work by dominating and pressing Colorado for the full 90 minutes and it paid off. “
On the confidence from last week’s win:
“The win last week pushed the players’ confidence levels, and they worked hard in training on certain things and it paid off.”
On his goal:
“I found myself open. I was a bit disappointed in myself last week, with that miss against Toronto, it dwelled on my mind all week and I said to myself if I have that chance again that I’d do my best to put it away. Grazzini played a great ball in, it found me and I wasn’t going to miss.”
