Whether this is a step in the right direction will be anyone’s guess, but for the first time this season, the Chicago Fire came back from a second half deficit to get a point. A goal by Razvan Cocis in the 78th minute gave the Fire a 2-2 draw with Orlando City SC.
John Goossens opened the scoring with a 30-yard blast just six minutes in to give the Fire the lead. However, that lead lasted all of three minutes as Cyle Larin got on the end of a Kaka looping pass and in between two defenders for the equalizer.
Kaka then turned goalscorer in the 32nd minute. Larin headed Servando Carrasco’s cross off the post, but Kaka was there to put in the rebound and gave the Lions the lead into halftime.
“Honestly, I just think we didn’t follow the game plan,” said Fire head coach Veljko Paunovic. “We didn’t pay attention to the details and I will always address these things: when we are doing good things we will say, we will, of course, encourage guys to continue doing that. To me, there is no mistake but just not having the right attitude on the game plan and this is what I think and this is what we address, everyone knows what we have to improve and what happened, so that was on one side.”
On the other side, the Fire pressed for an equalizer and got one in the 79th minute when Cocis headed in a cross from Brandon Vincent.
“We were talking about it at halftime,” said Cocis. “Everybody knew that we weren’t having a great first half, and we encouraged each other. It’s pretty much the same thing that we do every time it happens. But I think this time, it was a good and a better reaction. In the second half, we stepped up higher in the field, which was great. It feels good when I see that we can be there, we can be higher on the field, dominating the opponent, and stay there. As you saw, after we scored the second goal, we could’ve scored the third one, we kept the pressure and kept believing in turning back this game. It didn’t happen, but hopefully, we don’t have to deal with this anymore. I want to see a team that can play without conceding a goal, because we can score. We showed that we can score every game, and it’s very important not to concede.”
Despite not getting a winner, given that past two weeks, a point is a step in the right direction.
“In the last 15 minutes, we almost had a winning goal,” said David Accam. Even though we didn’t play well, the guys showed great courage, and I’m really happy with everyone in the team.
“For us, we want to dominate every game at home. We get a lot of chances, but at that moment, I would take 2-2, because we went 2-1 down and came back 2-2 and we almost had a win. I think 2-2 is a fair result.”
After the Open Cup loss, there was a team meeting and there were two options—give up or carry on to the end of the season.
“We had a meeting, we said that there are only two ways here,” said Paunovic. “One is nonacceptable, which is abandon and the second one is we continue working hard and work together and we have to keep the spirit and positivity in our group, which is very important because this is all the process and this is all a great opportunity for us all to become better professionals and for sure better people because these kind of challenges are very important and we have to appreciate this opportunity. And that’s not all of course. We have to improve, we have to perform better but at I think today we were the team that wanted to win the game. And at least the sensations are we gave our best.”
Next up for the Fire is a trip to Montreal on Saturday at 6:30pm on CSN Chicago Plus. Breaking their long road winless streak would definitely be a step in the right direction.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-John Goossens (Polster) 6
ORL-Cyle Larin (Kaka) 9
ORL-Kaka (unassisted) 32
CHI-Razvan Cocis (Vincent) 78
BOOKING SUMMARY:
ORL-Tommy Redding (caution, reckless foul) 17
CHI-David Accam (caution, unsporting behavior) 47+
ORL-Jose Aja (caution, reckless tackle) 86
CHICAGO FIRE (3-4-1-2): #25-Sean Johnson; #6-Eric Gehrig, #4-Johan Kappelhof, #16-Jonathan Campbell; #2-Matt Polster, #19-Khaly Thiam (#9-Luis Solignac 46), #30-Razvan Cocis, #3-Brandon Vincent; #7-John Goossens (#12-Arturo Alvarez 71); #8-Michael de Leeuw, #11-David Accam
Subs not used: #28-Matt Lampson, #5-Michael Harrington, #21-Nick LaBrocca, #26-Michael Stephens, #15-Joey Calistri
ORLANDO CITY SC (4-2-3-1): #1-Joe Bendik; #12-Kevin Alston, #29-Tommy Redding (#4-Jose Aja 56), #3-Seb Hines, #14-Luke Boden; #7-Cristian Higuita (#46-Tony Rocha 61), #5-Servando Carrasco; #20-Brek Shea, #10-Kaka (C), #30-Matias Perez Garcia (#18-Kevin Molino 64); #9-Cyle Larin
Subs not used: #36-Earl Edwards Jr., #45-Mikey Ambrose, #11-Carlos Rivas, #19-Julio Baptista
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 19-20 ORL
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 8-7 ORL
FOULS: CHI 15-16 ORL
OFFSIDES: CHI 2-0 ORL
CORNER KICKS: CHI 7-5 ORL
SAVES: CHI 5-6 ORL
Referee: Mark Geiger
Referee’s Assistants: CJ Morgante, Joe Fletcher
4th Official: Edvin Jurisevic
Weather: Mostly Cloudy and 83º
Attendance: 18,148
Man of the Match: Kaka (ORL)
Chicago Fire
Orlando City
