Fire, DC United Play to Goalless Draw

CHICAGO, IL–For both DC United and Chicago Fire FC, there wasn’t much to settle after 90 plus minutes as they ended in a scoreless draw on at Soldier Field on a breezy and chilly Saturday night.

DC United earned its second draw of the season and is now 1-3-2, 5 points, while the Fire picked up a third tie in five matches and are now at 1-1-3, 6 points.

The Fire over its last two matches had been able to score goals as they put in six of them, but couldn’t find one to go into the back of the net.

“Sometimes it depends on your opponent and how you’re playing,” Chicago Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson said. “(DC United) had a really good game plan that they came in and it’s the way we like to play. We did what we had to do to keep them off the board. It’s difficult to get ball over the top when we play our game. We need to be cleaner offensively. It’s part of how (DC United) plays. They came in with a plan and stuck with it.”

In some ways, Chicago had some positive things to keep on their side and some things to look up as they move forward from this match.

“It wasn’t the way we wanted to play,” Hendrickson said. “We want to win our home games. This wasn’t like the Cincinatti game that you roll up and fight. We just had to adjust with the way (DC United) was playing. I thought the guys did well and put us in a great position at the end. We stuck to what we wanted to do. We just didn’t score any goals. The thing is that we didn’t lose the game. It wasn’t game that we were leading and gave up goals. Overall, the attitude is better, and we’ve picked up four points at home.”

Chris Mueller had a few chances of finding the back of the net and just couldn’t get the finish he was looking for or the same can be noted for the other opportunities by a few others.

“I think the result was disappointing, we obviously want to come away with three points every time we play at home,” Mueller said. “But (DC United) made it difficult for us. When you look at the game and it was super direct, It wasn’t a pretty game and not one that we want to play. Sometimes it’s like that and the best to move forward is to find way to win games like that. It won’t be the last. We’ll take this and learn. There were some positives such as getting the shutout. But we’re disappointed because we always want to win.”

The defense played well for the Fire and Chris Brady earned his first career shutout with three saves in goal and it was the first one for the season.

DC United wanted to come away with more points than a single road point but managed to get something out of it.

“We wanted to have different results and I challenged the players to play a little bit different,” DC United coach Wayne Rooney said. “We were playing a bit more direct. (Chicago) probably could’ve won the game at the end. We had a good save by Tyler (Miller). We still had a couple of good games, just disappointed how they ended. These players are playing OK, they deserve more wins than what they’ve picked up. It probably wasn’t the best game to watch. But we picked up a clean sheet.”

Chicago next plays host to Minnesota United FC next Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. CT, while DC United. hosts Columbus at 7:30 ET