Chicago Fire 4:1 Toronto FC
Preseason Friendly
Recap
Veljko Paunovic, Chicago Fire Head Coach
On his team’s performance today:
“It’s great to finish preseason like this, winning and playing well in my opinion. Now the real stuff is coming. Now we have to prepare. Once we come back to Chicago, we have to prepare for the competition; for a very difficult game that we have against Columbus at [MAPFRE Stadium]. Now, the guys will for sure see and start to feel the pressure of the competition. That’s something that we, of course, have to work on. We have to prepare well. I’m very happy. I think everyone has reasons to have good expectations for this season, but as I said it’s going to be very important how we start.”
On midfielder Juninho’s impact today:
“I think Juninho is very important for the team. His hard work in the midfield and quality of his decisions in play are very important. As we could see today, he can score amazing goals. It’s very important also that he’s influencing the others in the team. He’s one of the leaders, hard-working, and that’s what we’re looking for. So far, he and all the others that we brought in, I think they are doing a great job.”
On the team’s overall performance during the preseason:
“I’m very happy. I’m very grateful and appreciative of the effort from everyone -- the players, the staff, the whole club and the organization. I think everyone did very well. What we have to do now as a club once we come back is do everything to keep that mood that we are in, the positivity that we have, the expectation and hard work. We have to support the players and give them everything they need to recover and start well this season.”
Michael de Leeuw, Chicago Fire forward
On today’s win:
“I think we played a good game. I think Toronto was better in the first half, but we made our chances. Toronto is a good team and you saw it in the first half. I think the second half was more for us. It’s good that we scored in both halves. I think it’s a good game for us.”
On his two goals scored:
“I think my first goal was a good attack with David [Accam], Niko [Nemanja Nikolic], and me and at the end I was at the goal line. It doesn’t matter for me. A goal is a goal. The second one was a great pressure from Lucho [Luis Solignac] and they played a bad pass so I could go one-on-one.”
On how the team’s high pressure worked out:
“I think it turned out good. We scored with the high pressure. I think we’re developing our game and it’s getting better and better. The whole team can’t wait to play the match next week.”
On how today’s result impacts the team heading into the 2017 regular season:
“It’s good for our confidence that we win these kind of games, but at the end, next week every team is starting at zero. Everything next week is important, but I think the confidence is big after this one.”
