For the past three weeks the Chicago Fire backed into the semifinals of SuperLiga and were eliminated quickly by the United Soccer Leagues Second Division’s Wilmington Hammerheads.It’s back to the main job at hand as the Fire (5-3-6) travel to Colorado to take on the Rapids (5-3-6) at 8 p.m. Saturday in Major League Soccer play.
The usefulness of this stretch has been the opportunity to rest a few bodies. Forward Brian McBride had logged a ton of minutes. John Thorrington had some back issues. C.J. Brown felt a little something in his hamstring during SuperLiga and decided to take caution.
But like the bulk of this season, with frequent tournaments popping up in the middle of the MLS schedule, we now have the CONCACAF Gold Cup drawing a few good men away. In the Fire’s case, that means no Logan Pause (pictured) and no Gonzalo Segares. Potentially no Jon Busch in goal either, if one of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s other two goalkeepers gets injured or suspended.
The Fire defense will have to be on top of its game with the Rapids returning target man Conor Casey, who was with the U.S. MNT at the FIFA Confederations Cup. He was a lethal force for Colorado before he left for the national team. Colorado stayed strong during Casey’s absence with the play of Omar Cummings, who was just called up to the U.S. MNT for the Gold Cup.
SlideTackles.net prediction: The difficult part of this upcoming match for Chicago is that throughout the three-week, non-MLS stretch, the Fire haven’t been bringing out their complete A-team lineup. The bottom line is that Fire head coach Denis Hamlett didn’t want to tire out a McBride or Cuauhtemoc Blanco, and for the sake of maintaining their high impact and availability, it was a smart decision.
Their defense and midfield will need to pick up some slack with the Gold Cup absences of Segares and Pause. Those two cover quite a bit of ground on the pitch. The early projection is that Tim Ward will be in Pause’s spot on the field, and he did get some work there in SuperLiga. However, he had little impact and was eventually dropped back to right back.
The Fire definitely need to improve their performance from the past two non-MLS matches. Falling to the USL-2’s Wilmington Hammerheads was definitely an unexpected scenario, and the late subs of Marco Pappa and Chris Rolfe did not remedy the team’s lack of a goal. Defensively, during Chicago’s match against Tigres in SuperLiga, Hamlett was more than displeased about the team’s effort.
The Rapids’ three losses have all come against the top three teams in the Western Conference standings. And Colorado is one of four MLS teams still undefeated at home. The big focus for Chicago is limiting Casey, because if he can cause any sort of disruption, whether he muscles his way for some goal chances on his own or draws extra coverage to create for others, the Rapids will erase their rare setback last week at Seattle. Colorado Rapids 2, Fire 1
No comments:
Post a Comment