All they needed was some home cookin’. The Chicago Fire returned to Soldier Field Saturday night April 6 to over 18,000 fans in attendance for “Chicago Sports Night”. Looking to rebound from a 3-0 loss in Atlanta last week, the Fire welcomed the Houston Dynamo, who have gotten off to a hot start this season.
Arnaud Souquet earned his first start of the season along with Chris Mueller. The Fire looked energized and agressive from kickoff. The first goal arrived quickly, when in the 10th minute off a Fire corner kick a penalty was called in the in the box against the Dynamo defender who basically bear hugged (no pun intended) a Fire player.
Captain Xherdan Shaqiri capitalized on a beautiful penalty to the back corner of the net to give the Fire a 1-0 early lead. To their credit the Fire didn’t let up and continued the aggressive pace. Minutes later Maren Haile-Selassie had a breakaway on a Houston mistake, but ended up passing up the shot and crossing the ball, in what looked like a mistake.
Fire head coach Frank Klopas addressed that play and other missed opportunities during the game. “Tonight we looked fresh, dynamic, but when you get them on the final third I want the players to be aggressive, I don’t care if we lose the ball, but we need to be aggressive.”
Aggressive they were to a fault, with some sloppy play in the back line and some miscues from goalkeeper Chris Brady, who was pretty terrific nonetheless, a couple blunders aside. The Dynamo did have a few dangerous attacks, but the Fire defense was pretty stout all night long.
The Fire held the 1-0 lead into halftime. After the break, they had some more quality opportunities against Houston, but just seemed a step off and off-the-mark. The best chance when Hugo Cuypers couldn’t connect on a shot in the box. The inability to convert lead to a terrific strike from the Dynamo winger Ibrahim Aliyu in the 65th minute.
Tied at 1-1, the Fire made a couple substitutions in the 69′ brining on Brian Gutierrez for Mueller and Jonathan Dean for Souquet. The substitution paid off quickly, as in the 78′ a perfect teardrop pass from Shaqiri to Gutierrez resulted in a golazo from Guti, who flipped the ball over the head of Dynamo keeper Steve Clark.
In what surely will be nominated for MLS goal of the week, Guti strikes late again for the Fire. Houston continued to push for the remainder of the game down 2-1, but the Fire defenders were glued onto them at all times, clearing the ball and making clean tackles. The referee awarded 6 extra minutes of stoppage time at the end, but the Fire were able to lock-down and hold onto to their second victory of the season.
Big win for the Fire over a team high up in the table, just as they pulled off the shocker the last home game against Montreal. Three huge points. Postgame Xherdan Shaqiri discussed the importance of those three points, “It’s always good feeling for the boys to have a win in the pocket and three points at home, I always tell the guys, when we play at home nobody comes here to take points.”
He was right in that assessment, so far the Fire have played their best at home. The Fire did lose the possession battle 59% to 41%, and they were outshot 14-8, but what mattered is they had taken advantage of their shots and played an aggressive and energetic game that ultimately was the turning point.
Sitting on 8 points, next week they head to New Jersey to play the first place New York Red Bulls on April 13. It’s not going to be easy to take away points from a Red Bulls team who is playing at a high level early on this season.
After the trip to the Meadowlands, the Fire return home for a three game homestand, starting off against Real Salt Lake on Saturday, April 20.
Postgame, I was able to catch Polish Houston Dynamo FC striker Sebastian Kowalczyk. Was hoping to speak with him and he was gracious with his time. Below is the interview in Polish with Sebastian.
GAME NOTES:
- Defender Arnaud Souquet and midfielder Chris Mueller earn their first starts of the season. Mueller is playing in his 150th MLS regular season match and starting his 106th regular season match.
- Captain Xherdan Shaqiri returns to the starting lineup, starting his 54th regular season match for the Fire.
- Goalkeeper Chris Brady starts in the net for the seventh time this season, having only missed one game due to international duty.
- Defenders Rafael Czichos and Allan Arigoni, midfielder Maren Haile-Selassie and forward Hugo Cuypers start their seventh-consecutive match together. Czichos is the only player to have played the full 90 minutes in all of the Fire’s six previous matches this season.
- Defender Tobias Salquist returns to the XI to earn his fourth start of the season.
- Midfielders Kellyn Acosta and Fabian Herbers start in the midfield together for the sixth time this season.
- Defenders Chase Gasper (upper leg), Andrew Gutman (upper leg) and Carlos Terán (red card suspension) are unavailable for today’s match.
- Available off the bench for Coach Klopas are goalkeeper Spencer Richey; defenders Jonathan Dean and Wyatt Omsberg; defender/midfielder Mauricio Pineda; midfielders Gastón Giménez, Brian Gutiérrez and Federico Navarro; and forwards Tom Barlow and Georgios Koutsias.
**Photo: Melissa Tamez/USA TODAY Sports
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