Frank Yallop, Chicago Fire Head Coach and Director of Soccer
On if the Fire were the better team tonight
“No, cause they weren’t. The first half was good, the second half we were totally out played. Very naïve from us. At some point you have to figure it out on the field. I can’t do much from where I am at except make changes in certain things, the lineup, and get other players in, but you got to stand up and be counted.”
On how frustrated he feels
“I feel terrible because I thought tactically we had it figured out. We did great in the first half, but the game is 90 minutes. You got to punish them with another goal, but I said at half time ‘they are going to come at you because they’re good.’ I don’t think we really wanted to win that game because we didn’t show it. If we wanted to, we would have put our head through the ball, and be good at that stuff. We had a total collapse in a game we should have won.”
On if the team broke down from Real Salt Lake’s pressure
“They’re a good side. They could have scored a couple first half [goals].The whole game is in ebbs and flows, we had some chances, took them, they had a couple, and Sean made two great saves. We’ve played eight games, we’ve not won yet. We got to go to a tough place next game, and we got to get a result.”
On keeping morale high without getting wins
“We will find out next week. We’ve not had that happen to us collapsing like that in the second half. Take nothing away from them but we should see that game out, 2-1, even 2-2, but not 3-2. I got to figure out who is going to be punching and fighting the whole season, the whole 90 minutes.”
On if there will be some changes for next week
“It’s a bit early for that, but I would think so.”
On if there was too much respect for Real Salt Lake
“They play a certain style of game. It’s a possession game. We just kept going backwards and not stepping into people. We tended to drop and have low pressure, but that doesn’t mean no pressure. You still got to try to win the ball back and then break. I don’t want to be that deep, but we ended up that deep. You got to see that game through. We’ve got to be man enough to see that game through, and we didn’t.”
On positives from that performance
“We scored two goals. I guess that’s a positive. When you lose it’s sickening. It’s very difficult to take. First half, Sean made some good saves and we played pretty well. Then a crazy 15-20 minute spell, we give the game to them, which is really disappointing.”
Jeff Larentowicz, Chicago Fire midfielder and captain
On what changed from the first half to the second half:
“We stopped doing things in the second half that we did well in the first – we conceded ground, allowed them to play in our end, didn’t connect passes once we had it, and if you do that against a good team they are going to beat you.”
On how RSL was able to do that:
“They crowd the ball, they get a lot of numbers, and they’re good at finding ways to keep possession. They make you work defensively, so once you get it you’re tired and they wear you down. I don’t think it was a conscious thing where we said ‘alright let’s hunker down,’ we just have to defend and defend properly.”
On how to move forward:
“This is a mental test for us. All the positives we’ve been putting on things, we can’t do it any longer. It’s been weeks and tonight it’s a loss, it’s not a game where can say we played a complete game and didn’t get the points, we didn’t. We have to look at the mistakes we made and move on. Like I said, it’s a mental challenge; we can’t go in the negative direction. The guys have to keep a positive attitude, guys have to honestly assess what they are doing personally to a man, go home and figure out how they are going to work harder and push themselves to have a positive attitude and push on. At this point it’s difficult – you can go one of two directions and we have to push forward and have to expect that we can learn from our mistakes and move on.”
Sean Johnson, Chicago Fire goalkeeper
On the result:
“I think it’s obvious that it doesn’t feel great, after we were up 2-0 and losing at home. I can’t really describe the emotions right now; it’s a difficult one to swallow at home, being up. We can’t make excuses for it though. We were not good enough.”
On the shift in the game:
“We have to search for answers. I don’t know what happened, we were up 2-0 on cruise control, the game was in our hands and they scored one, they scored two, get the momentum and before you know it they won the game.”
On what’s next for the team:
“This was definitely a test for us. We’ve got to look at ourselves, there’s no one for us to blame. We’ve got to look at ourselves in the locker room and come up with a solution. We keep digging a hole for ourselves, there’s no reason at this point in the season we should be where we are - we should be close to the top of the table. We’ve had games in hand; off the top of my head we’ve had four games now that I feel like we should have gotten a win. Scratch the ties, we’ve taken a step back now with the loss. We’ve got to get back to training. We can’t get down; we can’t let something like this affect the mood of the team. We have to keep chugging along; we have a handful of games left, so we have to dig in.”
On the difficulty of staying positive during the winless streak:
“This is our job, professionally, game in and game out we have to have the same attitude and find a way to win games, plain and simple. We’ve been through everything tactically, physically and mentally I think now we have to find what it takes to win these games.”
On the coach’s reaction to the loss:
“Obviously we’re not happy with ourselves and the coaching staff is obviously disappointed with the result – there’s really not much more to say. There’s disappointment all the way around.”
