Fire Drop Two More Points at Home Late–Again

“It’s the same thing that has happened three times now, late in the game,” Chicago Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson said.  “It’s a corner kick and we decide we’re not going to mark our man. On the corners, each man has a responsibility, each man has a player that they’re supposed to be marking. They know it, it’s not like we don’t know it. Against Cincy, same thing happened; last week against Atlanta, same thing, we don’t mark. And again tonight, we don’t mark.”

Trying to find the explanation as a coach seems to be out of reach for this team at the moment and the Fire are missing out on points in the league standings.

“I wish I could explain it to you, but I have no explanation for it.” Hendrickson said. “We just have to get people on the pitch who are going to man up in situations like this.  When the game is on the line and say, ‘My man is not going to beat me. We are not going to lose this game because I let my man go free in the box.’

“Because it’s ridiculous now. And quite frankly, I’m fed up with it. But I have to take responsibility because at the end of the day, I’m the head coach, and it’s my team and we’re letting these points slip away. Obviously, I’m not out there marking but I have to get guys on the pitch who are going to step up in these pressure situations and just not get beat, just not get beat. We’re at home, a minute or two or so to go, they get a corner, and we lose our mark. Once again. It’s just ridiculous and it has to stop.”

“I saw another corner kick that we couldn’t defend, exactly like last weekend (Atlanta),” Rafael Czichos said. “We were talking a lot about it last week, that we have to defend our set pieces better. And we were not able to do it again. And this is why we’re here now, with only one point and not three.”

Trying to figure out how to resolve the problem will need for the players to work it out along with the coaching staff in practices.

“I think we have to think about our whole mindset when we lead a game,” Czichos said, “I don’t think it’s right to defend after and not to work for the second or third goal. I think if we would have kept playing our game, it would have been better at the end. We never give up. I think we have to realize that we didn’t lose a game, we still got to a point but like I said, we have to work on our mindset and when we want to make the playoffs, we have to stop only defending when we’re leading a game.”