New York City Football Club Head Coach Ronny Deila has hailed his team’s winning mentality following their 1-0 success against Chicago Fire.
The Boys in Blue welcomed the Fire to Citi Field on Sunday knowing anything but a defeat would extend their unbeaten run to eight games in all competitions. In the end, a first-half penalty from Héber was enough to separate the two sides, handing NYCFC a win and confirming a club-record fifth consecutive clean sheet in MLS. Speaking afterward, Deila hailed his team’s performance and their winning mentality in the face of adversity.
“Defensively it was very good,” Deila said. “Everybody was organized and we didn’t give away anything. We produced six or seven big chances and we should have taken more of them than we did, but sometimes it’s like that. As I said, we had to suffer in the end of the game to get the result, but that’s a winning mentality.”
Elsewhere, Deila also revealed his team’s strategy for shackling Xherdan Shaqiri. The Swiss international was deployed as the chief playmaker for the Fire having been involved in six of their last eight goals scored in MLS, but was unable to impact Sunday’s game in the same way.
“We know that if Shaqiri gets space he is going to hurt us,” Deila said. “That’s why we had two sixes around him so we didn’t give him any space. I don’t think he had a big impact on the game. Like I said they didn’t create many chances and we defended really well from set plays as well. It’s about our whole performance, how we do our tasks. We didn’t give them spaces to play in and hurt us.”
