Chicago Fire goalkeeper Zach Thornton Kansas City goalkeeper Tony Meola Kansas City forward Miklos Molnar Meola’s Opening Comments “This is an exciting week for our organization. The majority of our team, with the exception of Peter Vermes and Chris Henderson have never been here. At the beginning of the year, when you start the season, this is the time you hope to get to. This is the time when you want to be playing. We are happy to be here and hoping to finish off with a victory. We know we are playing who we’ve all felt is the best team in MLS all year. We have to slow them down offensively, something we’ve done to teams all year. As far as the awards go, its a great honor. The Goalkeeper of the Year award is great, as in anything you try to be best you can be. In this case, it wasn’t my goal. To be playing this week was my goal. This award is still a bit extra special. Guys like Zach Thornton and company have owned this award the last couple of seasons.” Molnar’s Opening Comments “From the start of the season I’ve had a great feeling about this team and the league. I think the whole team from day one did a great job in the preseason, we started off really well. We built up the confidence. We knew if we kept on working we could be here this week. I think we worked hard the whole year to get to the Final. It has been great to score these goals in the postseason, something I’ve worked for the whole season.” Thornton’s Opening Comments “I’m happy to be back in the final again. Last year, we had a bad taste in our mouth. We have a couple of injuries and National Team callups now, but we’ll be back together on Thursday. Hopefully, we’ll have our full team on Sunday. But, we have dealt with injuries and callups all season long. Guys have been able to step up when we need them too. Also, I am really happy for Tony. He’s a great keeper and deserves the award.” Meola on his relationship with Thornton with the MetroStars “For me, those two years (1996-97) we had together with the MetroStars were two of the best years I’ve had working with someone. Zach was a pleasure to be around and a guy I knew right away would be a super goalkeeper. He tried to learn as much as he could in two seasons. When we let him go from New York, he had learned so much he won a championship and was the goalkeeper of the year with Chicago. He’s a sponge. Zach is having a super end of the season and I saw three of their last five regular season games and he was outstanding. Anytime you have Zach in the back your team feels confident.” Thornton on learning from Tony Meola “Those two years in New York were great for me, I learned a lot from Tony. I thank Tony for treating me like a peer, treating me as an equal when no one had even heard of me before.” Thornton on Meola’s game “He has no weaknesses, he’s the Goalkeeper of the Year. Tony is great with his feet, that is something I’ve always admired. His distribution is something I would like to copy. He puts the ball where he wants, when he wants, something I still need to work on.” Molnar on MLS’ playoff format “I look at it a little bit different. Since I was six-years-old I was used to a different kind of tournament. You can’t be lucky or unlucky in 32 games. We showed over that span we were the top team. We overcame injury and all the stuff that happened. When we won that last game in Tampa Bay (to clinch the best overall record), I was real happy and it felt like we won a championship. Afterwards, we kept winning in the playoffs. For sure, it’s different but quite fun to have this kind of a tournament. For me, anything can happen in a couple of games.” Molnar on Chicago forward Hristo Stoitchkov “He is a great player, someone that I followed myself when I played in Spain. He was a star at Barcelona, did some incredible stuff there. When you go on the field, you don’t think about who you are playing against. He’s a great player that has proven to be really important for Chicago.” Meola on preseason expectations in Kansas City “Certainly I knew our team was going to be better because we brought in guys like Matt McKeon, Peter Vermes and Miklos. We didn’t know we would gel so quickly in the back line. We have a whole new defense. When we got to Bolivia in preseason we saw how well we played on defense and knew we could be a good team. We were winning in preseason and scoring goals, which was totally different than the year before.” Meola on the two regular-season games against Chicago “What stands out to me is how both teams went at each other for 90 minutes each game. The games were just up and down for 90 minutes. The team that executes more plays will be the team that wins.” Molnar on his family watching MLS Cup “My Dad will be my secret weapon. They are flying in tomorrow to Washington, D.C. He will have plenty of time to prepare my goulash. I don’t know if it is possible for him to make it for me in the hotel. It will be great to have him at the Final.” Meola on a change of direction in MLS “The league has been setup to have parity and that’s what we have seen this year. I still think D.C. United is better than they showed this year. If you think this Final will be boring, go get the two tapes of our games against Chicago, there was nothing sleepy about those games for sure. When you have the two teams that finished top of the league over 32 games, it’s not a mistake that we are here. I think its going to be an exciting game.” Molnar on his MLS experience “It has been a very exciting season. Everything went so well. Normally when you go through a season there are some ups and downs. So much has been positive here, things have all gone the right way. When I came here to America, I was looking for something different and found that. I had played in five or six different countries in Europe before. Now, I got to the playoffs here, and now the final. It has been great all season long.” Thornton on the Fire’s MLS Cup experience “Just being there and knowing how the media will treat the team helps. We can handle the hoopla. We have been there before and know what to expect. It’s a little edge. Once the game kicks off, it’s just two teams trying to win a Final.” Thornton on the 1998 Cup-winning team “The team that won two years ago defended a little bit better, but this year’s team scores a few more goals. We made it here, so we’ll see what happens.” Meola on Mo Johnston’s role in Kansas City “On the field, Mo gives us so much as a leader. He is one of those ‘die-hard’ type guys. He never gives up, can do so many different things for us working on both ends of the ball. He is a guy, that when the chips are down, that can bail you out. You saw that in Game Three, after a workmanlike game, he was able to head that ball in overtime to Miklos for the series-winner. He took that blow to the head to create the play. Mo is one of those guys, along with Preki and Uche Okafor, that will finally get to play in a Final after being in a Wizards’ uniform for all five seasons. Those guys define this organization.” Molnar on Mo Johnston’s role in Kansas City “He is really important for the team. We’ve had some great games working together. When we played together we have had some good games. He took that knock in the game to get me the winning goal. Two days later in training he was winning long balls in practice with stitches in his head. That explains everything about Mo.” Meola on his personal turnaround “I’ve said it before, when I first got to Kansas City I thought I was jinxed. I didn’t want to be traded, but then I thought it happened for a reason. Then I hurt my ACL right away and I wanted to get out of Kansas City. To think that this could happen 18 months or so down the line is truly incredible. As fun as it’s been, the guys in the locker room feel like we haven’t won anything yet. For me, it is nice to come back from what was my worst season as a professional.” Meola on handling Chicago’s scoring ability “No question, Chicago attacks better than any team in the league. We have to be at our best defensively. We have to be at our best defensively. If there is any team in the league that can win with our defense, it is us. We have to defend as a unit and put away our chances as we have done all season.” Meola on the transformation of Peter Vermes “I was there when he first played as a defender with the MetroStars, they saw he could organize and had a good feel for the game. Peter brings so much to the table, people don’t see his professionalism every day. The way he takes care of his body and acts as a professional is impressive. He is so important to our team. As far as being Defender of the Year, he deserves a lot of credit. He works so hard on his game, its not easy to change from forward to defender. He was playing as a defensive midfielder in 1996 and we had a few injuries. Peter was moved back and took off from there.” Meola on putting past seasons behind him “When the rehabilitation began, I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t have any past experience with this. When I got into rehab it became a game for me, I tried to compete against myself and everyone who doubted me and said my career was over. The process is still continuing, it’s a two year rehab that is not done yet. The biggest reward I’ve gotten is that we are playing in a Final. If you have ever spent any time around our team, it’s a nice a group of guys as any in sports. I’ll be proud one day to tell my grandkids that I was part of this team.” Meola on the 2000 season compared to 1999 “This year it is truly Bob Gansler’s team. He came on in the seventh or eighth game and it wasn’t his type of squad. I knew that sooner or later Bob would get his group together and work from there. I didn’t think it would come together so soon. I owe Bob so much, for putting me on the National Team when I was so young, and hopefully I can repay him this weekend with a trophy.” Thornton on Chicago’s National Team callups “Diego (Gutierrez), (Chris) Armas, (Ante) Razov and (Josh) Wolff are with the U.S. Team and I don’t think it’s too much of a distraction. We’ll just have to get those guys back on Thursday and go from there. Injuries are always a possibility, but you can’t worry about that. We are a pretty deep team, we can put any of our guys on the field and be successful.” Meola on Sunday’s tactics “Just like any other team, instead of concentrating on Razov, Wolff and their forwards, you have to cut out the source. In past games it has been Valderrama and Ralston or Cienfuegos. We have to stop Stoitchkov from being able to feed balls to their strikers. If Nowak is healthy enough to play, he is another guy to watch out for. The less balls we give the creators to make plays, the better off we are.” Thornton on Hristo Stoitchkov’s impact “He has a lot of experience and is willing to share it with the players. He pulls players aside and speaks to them after practice, he is very patient. He has a great feel for the game and a great attitude about helping everybody.”