CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

October 1, 2022

Jhon Durán

Press Conference

Chicago Fire 3, Cincinnati 2

Q. Your thoughts on the win tonight and the performance, not just by you, but by the team in general considering how much Cincinnati had to play for compared to you guys.

JHON DURÁN: Thanks very much for the well wishes and for having me here. I think you can see that from the very beginning, the team worked really hard from minute one until the very end, and there at the end we suffered a little bit. Things got a little bit hard on us, but we all worked together really hard. It was a good team effort. We always go into these games working hard and trying to move forward and do the best that we can.

I think that you can see that it was a very good team effort tonight. We have been working hard from the beginning. You can see the last games and the previous games, like we went out and no one ever wants to lose. Everyone always goes out trying to win. We are continuing to work forward to keep doing the right things, and we are never giving up. So we are going to keep working at 100 percent.

Q. I want to ask you, you have now five goals in your last four matches. Unfortunately the team is not making the playoffs this year, but how do you carry this strong run of form heading into 2023?

JHON DURÁN: It's just putting in the work, the hard work of the team. Also helps me but mostly it's wanting to do the right things and to keep working hard so that you can keep doing the right things. And also, it's listening to people around you. There are people that are very important around you who are always trying to help you, so you have to listen to them as well.

But it's going to just be working hard this year. Unfortunately we are not in the playoffs but we have to continue to work and we have to continue to do things right. So we are going to continue working so things can keep going right and we can keep improving.

Q. How was the international break with the national team?

JHON DURÁN: It was lovely. There were really great days, being able to share that moment with my country and being on the full national team. As a player, you learn from everyone, learn from all your experiences, and there you learn even more.

So I went, I worked hard and I came back and here they received me always in the best way possible. So I'm just going to keep working with all I my teammates, working hard to keep going forward so that we can go into 2023 in the best way possible and be able to get into the playoffs.

Q. Talk about the game today, how do you think that this game, it was a victory a little bit too late, but how can it help you going into next season?

JHON DURÁN: I don't think that any team ever wants to lose. We are always working toward winning and to be able to win the games, and maybe throughout the season, the results didn't quite go our way. But we are continuing to work hard, and this win, even though it is a little bit late, it gives us confidence so that we can keep working and keep looking forward and to be more united.