BRIDGEVIEW, IL—If the Fire miss the playoffs for a fifth successive season, then it will be matches like this one where lacked intensity and fell meekly, 2-0, to New York City FC. With the loss, the Fire are now five points out of a playoff spot with five teams to pass and eight matches left to play.
Xherdan Shaqiri is sure to come in for some criticism after he failed to track back to mark Gabriel Pereira in the 16th minute. Pereira essentially was given all sorts of space and scored from 25 yards out into the upper 90 to put NYCFC ahead.
It got worse at the start of the second half. Mauricio Pineda played a ball back to Rafael Czichos, but the defender soon found himself hounded by Pereira and Santiago Rodriguez. Rodriguez would come away with the ball and with an easy goal to make it 2-0. Replays appear to show that Pereira had stepped on the foot of Czichos, but there was no call from Referee Rosendo Mendoza and VAR Ramy Touchan confirmed the goal after a check.
“I don’t know if he touched me,” said Czichos. “I think the situation was over or I thought the situation was over. Then I got the ball, I didn’t see the guy coming from the left and then I tried everything to find the solution to get out of the situation. Unfortunately, he didn’t whistle and yeah, second goal, and then it’s really hard to come back against New York City FC.”
The Fire ended up with no shots on target and the closest they would come was a Jhon Duran header that went off the crossbar in stoppage time.
Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson labeled his team’s performance ‘by far’ the worst of the season.
“I wish I could give you an explanation but I don’t have one because, as I just told them inside, that was very disappointing,” said Hendrickson. “That was by far our worst performance this year. And to give that type of performance at this time of the year, this crucial, critical time of the season, it’s just not acceptable. You know, last week was last week but we needed to turn around; we know that we have to win our home games. And we talked about that. But tonight, it was just, we just didn’t look the part from the start, from start to finish.”
The Fire will look to recoup as they return to Soldier Field on Saturday to take on CF Montreal. Kickoff is at 7pm on WGN-TV. Simply put, the performance needs to be much better.
SCORING SUMMARY:
NYC-Gabriel Pereria (Rodriguez) 16
NYC-Santiago Rodriguez (Pereira) 46
BOOKING SUMMARY:
CHI-Rafael Czichos (caution, tactical foul) 18
CHI-Carlos Teran (caution, tactical foul) 60
NYC-Nick Cushing (caution, delaying a restart) 63
NYC-Santiago Rodriguez (caution, delaying a restart) 72
CHI-Miguel Navarro (caution, dissent) 77
CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1): #1-Gaga Slonina; #2-Boris Sekulic, #23-Carlos Teran (#40-Brian Gutierrez 67), #5-Rafael Czichos, #6-Miguel Navarro; #31-Federico Navarro, #22-Mauricio Pineda (#21-Fabian Herbers 51); #7-Jairo Torres, #10-Xherdan Shaqiri, #8-Chris Mueller (#33-Victor Bezerra 78); #11-Kacper Przybylko (#26-Jhon Duran 51)
Subs not used: #18-Spencer Richey, #27-Kendall Burks, #37-Javier Casas, #40-Brian Gutierrez, #36-Andre Reynolds, #3-Jonathan Bornstein, #33-Victor Bezerra
NEW YORK CITY FC (4-2-3-1): #1-Sean Johnson; #3-Aaron Tinnerholm, #4-Maxime Chanot, #5-Thiago Martins, #12-Malte Amundsen; #80-Justin Haak, #26-Nick Acevedo; #38-Gabriel Pereira (#21-Andres Jasson 89), #20-Santiago Rodriguez, #43-Talles Magno (#9-Heber 82); #8-Thiago Andrade (#24-Tayvon Gray 77)
Subs not used: #13-Luis Barraza, #2-Chris Gloster, #32-Vuk Latinovich, #30-Samuel Owusu, #22-Kevin O’Toole
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 10-8 NYC
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 0-5 NYC
FOULS: CHI 13-11 NYC
OFFSIDES: CHI 5-3 NYC
CORNER KICKS: CHI 6-4 NYC
SAVES: CHI 3-0 NYC
Referee: Rosendo Mendoza
Assistant Referees: Logan Brown, Kevin Lock
Fourth Official: Fotis Bazakos
VAR: Ramy Touchan
Weather: Partly Sunny and 79º
Attendance: 11,720
Man of the Match: Gabriel Pereira (NYC)
