Following the Chicago Red Stars’ match against New Jersey/New York Gotham FC, Tatumn Milazzo, Bianca St-Georges and Head Coach Chris Petrucelli met with members of the media. The Red Stars took down Gotham FC 2-0 behind goals from Milazzo and Ava Cook.
On Tatumn Milazzo’s goal (from Claire Watkins)
Tatumn Milazzo: Yeah it’s always exciting. I feel like last year getting a goal was so exciting, so this year I was like ‘yea that would be great’ and we’ve been working so hard on our set pieces and dead balls and that kind of thing and I think we really just put together what we have been doing and executing well. So I think it’s a good thing to build on and keep going to see what’s in store for next week.
On Bianca teaming up again with Sarah Luebbert and Mallory Pugh (from Claire Watkins)
Bianca St-Georges: It’s good to be back together. It’s just fun and that’s why I like to play with them because I feel like we get to enjoy ourselves a lot. But I'm not satisfied, I still feel like we still have a lot we need to work on but it’s comforting to see that as the game goes on, we get better so we just build that.
On what Coach Petrucelli saw with St-Georges on the field compared to previous weeks (from Rusty Silber)
Chris Petrucelli: She certainly brings the ability to get behind people and also she has this ability to dig out the balls because she’s strong and athletic. So I think she caused a lot of danger coming off of that right side and we found her a number of times and she put a number of balls across, and of course we didn’t get any goals off of it, but certainly was dangerous and caused the other team problems.
On Milazzo’s family and friends getting to watch her first goal at home (from Jeff Vorva)
Milazzo: Yeah, I just got to see them on the sidelines and that was really exciting, they were screaming and yelling. My mom and my sisters and grandparents, my high school principal and one of my middle school principals and teachers were all here, so that was truly fun.
On noticing the shift of how teams are playing the Red Stars (from Claire Watkins)
Petrucelli: Yea I think we’ve seen that, we certainly saw that today no doubt and have seen it a number of times here more recently. We got to be patient and I think that’s the biggest thing this season is be patient and then we got to get creative, have a little creativity. I thought that Yuki was fantastic today, it may have been her best game and we needed that to help us break them down. She didn’t score a goal in one of those set piece goals, but we were pretty dangerous, I thought, got close a number of times.
On the importance of the win before the upcoming road trip (from Rusty Silber)
Petrucelli: it’s huge, first of all coming off of the last couple of games. I thought we had a little hangover from the San Diego game, sounds like they had one today to, so I didn’t feel like we started the game well. I didn’t feel like we had great energy, but we were able to grind through it. Those three points are huge. We’re able to put ourselves back toward the top of the table and give ourselves a chance and year we have some hard games coming up.
On playing in the wet conditions (from Hernan Espinoza Jr)
Milazzo: It was definitely tricky, I think. It was slippery, the ball was bouncing and sliding, so you really had to have your feet right before getting into tackles or winning balls out of the air. So it was definitely an adjustment, but that happens every game, you can’t get perfect conditions.
Petrucelli: I think Bianca fell down five times and changed shoes at the half.
St-Georges: It was taking me off guard. You always say when you attack one v one against a defender ‘break their ankles’ and I was breaking my own ankles. I was doing my job, but on the wrong person. I slipped half the time.