CHICAGO FIRE MEDIA CONFERENCE

April 26, 2025

Kellyn Acosta

Press Conference

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Nashville 7, Chicago 2

Q. Curious how you guys are processing this lopsided defeat and your expectations for the locker room coming into training Monday after this type of performance?

KELLYN ACOSTA: Yeah, I mean, obviously we're super -- disappointed isn't really the word for it. We know collectively that on the day, it just wasn't good enough.

It's a real wake-up call for us, and come Monday, we have to bring it. I mean, now we're going to have to watch video. See what are some things that didn't go well for us, and got to shore up the mistakes and put this game behind us.

I think for us, it wasn't a great performance at all. And yeah, we've got to just move forward.

Q. You've been in this game for a long time as a veteran player, what goes through your when you're part of a game where there's four goals, five, six? Is it shock? Disbelief? What happens as these sort of goals pile up and the deficit grows bigger?

KELLYN ACOSTA: Obviously you never want to be in a deficit of that magnitude. Yeah, it's a combination of a lot of emotions: Disappointment, frustration, disbelief, and I think just the mentality is, you've just got to keep pushing on, get through the game.

Obviously we want to get back into the game, take it goal by goal but I think the next step in a game like that is you've got to stop the breeding, which is lawing more goals. That's the only way you can give yourself a chance, and games like this is when character comes out. It's about playing for pride and playing for the shirt and playing for one another, on the day we know collectively just it wasn't good enough at all.

But you know, looking ahead, we've got to just review the film and come next week in training, just got to bring it in training. Going to try to flush this game out as quick as possible, and move forward.

Q. What was Nashville doing so well that you think you guys struggled with most?

KELLYN ACOSTA: I think if we are going to being honest with our receives, I think it started from us. I think we played into their hands well. What they want to do is come from the outside, put some serves in the box. They put a lot of runners in behind the back line, and we didn't do a great job of getting pressure on to the ball, then obviously covering the space and in between, I think there was a number of things that we didn't do well and they were able to exploit.

Credit goes to them. But ultimately, I mean, a lot of the mistakes and parts of the game are on us. I think it was too easy for myself in the midfield not getting close and not getting tight enough; able to play out wide. You know, Maher in the first half, second half, Mukhtar finding spaces, and ultimately Sam Surridge having some goals.

Yeah, as a team we never want to be that in a deficit like this, but it's hopefully going to be a real turning point for us. It was a real slap in the face, and it's going to take for us to look in the mirror and really evaluate ourselves evaluate our game and move forward.

Q. I know this doesn't affect the result or excuse any of the performance part, but it seemed like a lot of guys were slipping, losing their footing during the game. How was the pitch playing? Was that a factor with the way you guys were playing at all?

KELLYN ACOSTA: I mean, not necessarily. I think there's obviously different variables that we can put the blame on in the game but I think the field was great. It's about having the right moldings on to be prepped and ready for the game.

But I mean, ultimately, yeah, I'm not going to say, you know, we lost this game because of the field. I think the field was fine. And ultimately, it was us. It just wasn't a great performance from the first minute all the way to the end.