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A successful trip to Gilette Stadium puts the Chicago Fire near the top of the MLS table as the team continues its domination of bitter rival New England. Backdraft takes a look back at Saturday's 3-0 victory with two different reports. Marty Groark brings us a brief break down followed by a longer editorial by Backdraft's Michael Giacometti. After an incredible 4-0 trouncing of the Revolution at home in their first match up this year, many Fire fans thought it might be difficult to repeat such a dominatant performance when the Fire traveled to New England for their game on Saturday, but Chicago was able to execute just that with another big win against a struggling conference rival. The Fire were able to follow up their previous goalscoring clinic in April with 3 more against the Revolution on a chilly night at Gilette stadium.
Despite missing the last two games with an ankle injury, Fire forward Chris Rolfe opened the scoring in the 29th minute when a string of 10 Chicago passes ended on his left foot and he was able to place the ball past an oncoming Matt Reis into the far corner. New Chicago superstar John Thorrington continued his blazing form with his third goal in two games when Chad Barret found himself with possession of the ball, but his back to the net in the 50th minute. Barret gave a soft touch to an onrushing Thorrington who found himself alone and able to sneak a soft shot under Matt Reis to give the Fire a 2-0 lead.
Not to be outshone, the Fire defense kept up incredible pressure throughout the night and at times it looked like a wall of red at the top of the Fire's penalty area. Despite an even game possession-wise, the Revolution could not get any quality opportunities thanks to the tenacious defense of Gonzalo Segares and Diego Guttierez who helped shut down all incoming Revs attack. With Bakary Soumare as an anchor in the sweeper position and big performances from Gonzalo and Diego, the Fire's 4th defender, Brandon Prideaux was continually seen making runs and looking for Cuauhtémoc's passes down the sideline.
Play like this quickly broke apart the Revolution's back line and after a sloppily cleared ball by Matt Reis, the Fire were able to seal the victory with a final goal by rookie and former Maryland Terrapin Stephen King, whose return to the New England area was a sweet one as his goal was the first of his career.
The Fire ended the game with more spectacular defense as they preserved the shutout for Jon Busch, whose 0.50 goals against average is the best in the league and also gave Busch his league leading third shutout victory of the season. And now, from the desk of Giaco: Personal beliefs have always dictated that any team on any given day can challenge for the win--so while many would be tempted to talk the talk beforehand, it was great to see and hear nothing of the kind from the Chicago Fire. Most pundits would have you believe that it was to be a grudge match, or that the Revs would be out to 'avenge' an early season blotch on the season series between the Revolution and the Fire. However, it seems the team made explicitly sure that, although they have another match this Thursday at DC, they did not look past the team in front of them on the day. With the increased rivalry between Chicago and New England, it is becoming very apparent around the league that the early season matches should not only be taken seriously, but critically.
We here in the Windy City are all too aware of the necessity of home-field advantage, as it has eluded us at crucial moments recently -- such as the Eastern Conference finals last year, just to name a recent example.
On to the game itself. While the initial run of play was a bit sloppy for both sides, the pace was certainly there from the first whistle. The first and foremost assignment that was shouted at the television was for our defense to mark tighter on Khano Smith and Sharlie Joseph. What was missed, however, was the timely runs of Wells Thompson, an ever-present factor as the match wore on. As play began to settle, New England won a free kick that began to showcase just how tightly the Chicago defense was keyed in to the New England attack. The main contributor, and the Fire's man of the match, Bakary Soumare was there to impede the run of play and turn away the Rev's effort. On that particular play a special thanks is due to Chris Rolfe, who showed that Hamlett clearly had told everyone to stay behind the ball if we were not on the attack. Rolfe's cover and movement on the defensive end took away a potential second effort from New England. A close second for the man of the match for Chicago was Brandon Prideaux. His containment of Khano Smith and stonewalling of Shalrie Joseph in the open field were contributing factors to disrupting the Revolution attack. Astonishingly, and much to our relief, Jeff Larentowicz was seemingly invisible all night, and rarely contributed anything of value for his side. As always Gonzalo Segares fought hard when not on the ball to regain possession, or break up the run of play from New England.
In fact, for the majority of this match the Fire's defense was the most effective unit on the field. It seemed that even when marking became lax, players made timely switches or put themselves in the Revolution's passing lanes often enough that their attacking mids and forwards were rendered useless or effectively neutralized to the corners. The buildup to the first goal really highlighted the fact that with all of the great ball handlers we have, crisp and sharp passing coupled with good positioning will be rewarded. I know that many people are starting to become convinced that Thorrington is not only earning a starting role, but making a strong case for Rolfe to be a starting forward--and the first goal only helped to solidify that argument. It was apparent directly after the first goal that New England was still very much in the match and being as competitive as possible, as just a minute after the goal, Jon Busch was called on to make a huge save to deny the Revs any sort of reprieve. His league-leading G.A.A. continued to shine, and he handled a hard shot directly at him with relative ease. Easily the worst attacker in the match was Castro- -- he gave Busch a cream puff of a header in the 38th, a shot well off-target a few minutes later, as well as an extremely tame effort in the 2nd half. Do you think the Revs miss Twellman? We don't. In the second half, the run of play seemed to continue to open for the Fire with increased movement across the field (one narrower than that the Fire are used to): they were determined to continue to keep the use of the whole field and to shuffle the ball around to create open spaces. It was that sort of movement that lead up to the second goal of the match. And in this week's "that's why Chad's in the starting 11" moment, it was the lay-off pass that he made to Thorrington that forced the NE defense to key up on Barrett, lose Thorrington, and the combined play led to the goal. As the second half wore on, it became more and more apparent that the Revs were hanging their heads a little lower with every passing moment. However, that did not seem to impede the match from being played in an increasingly 'chippy' fashion on the part of New England: whether it was Albright's continued contact with Blanco, or the extra-curricular that Gonzo took late in the match. Obviously, the match was sealed when only two minutes after his appearance n in the 69th minute, Stephen King scored his first goal in MLS. All in all, no one can complain about a 3-nil win over a conference rival, and for a brief moment (until the end of the Columbus match at least), the Fire enjoyed the top of the league position. If there is one thing that continues to be an anomaly for the Fire this season, it is the astonishing corner kick ratio--opponents have typically gotten the better by far against the Fire. However, as has been the story of the season, the defense has stood resolute. It is obvious that the Fire's defense is staunch, but what was a relief to see was that even without Frankowski in the line-up, the offense continues to develop playmakers and goal scorers. Frankowski stayed in Chicago having rolled his ankle earlier in the week during practice. The Fire now turn their attention to the next leg of the road trip at DC for the Thursday night primetime match against DC United. The road win tonight continues the Fire's unbeaten road form, and will hopefully buoy them on.
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