CHICAGO FIRE 3, COLUMBUS CREW 2
CHICAGO FIRE HEAD COACH DAVE SARACHAN
On the win:
"The win was very important; it was an important day for us to get three points. Honestly, I couldn't be more proud of our group. You saw a team today that had one thing in mind, and that was to win this game. Whatever it took, we were going to do it. If it meant that we were down a man, if we gave up a goal late, like we did, we were just going to get through this game. They worked very hard to reward themselves and the fans that come watch us play with three points."
CHICAGO FIRE FORWARD CHAD BARRETT
On his breakaway goal:
"I was actually cramping up a little when I was running down [for] the goal and I was either going to kill myself or cramp up and kill myself if I missed."
CHICAGO FIRE DEFENDER JEFF CURTIN
On his header:
"I was up in the air, looking at the ball the whole way, and was just able to catch it."
On his red card ejection:
"I was feeling good after the goal, but I guess we got caught. I tried to recover but couldn't get there, so unfortunately I got sent off. But we got the win, so I'm happy."
CHICAGO FIRE MIDFIELDER WILLIAN OLIVEIRA
On being named the game's man of the match:
"I played against some great players - they had a good second half and I feel very privileged."
COLUMBUS CREW HEAD COACH SIGI SCHMID
On the game:
"This is the way our season has gone. You know, I think we outplayed a team and a team gets four shots on goal and scores three goals. We have nine or 10 shots and we only come out with two goals. I don't know on the first goal we scored, I don't know if it was offside or not, I didn't see the tape. It didn't look from the quick replay we saw on the scoreboard [screen] that there was an offside there. We did get good open looks. Alejandro [Moreno] was in three, four times; Ned Grabavoy had a great look as well. We get free kicks around the box and we can't hit the target. That's been the story of our season. From the first game of the year when we outplayed New York in the second half and we ended up tying, we go to Salt Lake, we outplay Salt Lake and we get two balls cleared off the line. We come away with nothing. It's just frustrating. It's not like we're getting played off the field. And the goals we gave up tonight -- the first goal was silly and the second goal was a deflection and the third was ridiculous. It was just a comedy of errors. I didn't know Chad [Barrett] was that fast with the ball. Apparently, he is."
COLUMBUS CREW MIDFIELDER DUNCAN OUGHTON
On the match:
"Obviously not a good result for us. I didn't think we played badly but we made two errors and stupid mistakes and now we have a bad result."
On making changes:
"Obviously changes have to happen now. We lose players -- Frankie [Hejduk] goes to the Gold Cup which is a big loss for us and Danny [O'Rourke] is suspended, so the changes are forced but we just need to get together and sort this out."
On taking positives from the match:
"Right now I'm too angry to think of the positives."
