Chicago Fire 1 -NYCFC 1
BRIDGEVIEW, IL—The Chicago Fire missed a chance to move closer to second place and pass Atlanta who drew at New England. They are likely to miss Michael de Leeuw for longer. De Leeuw went out in the 30th minute after a knee-on-knee collision with Yangel Herrera. De Leeuw was carried off the pitch to the locker room and was replaced by David Accam.
Fire head coach described the injury as “not good.”
“First of all, Michael’s injury doesn’t look good so the whole locker room is actually feeling for that situation right now,” said Paunovic. “It’s not good, Michael will have to do an MRI tomorrow to see what the diagnosis of his injury but it doesn’t look good, so everyone is a little concerned.”
“It’s very sad,” said Fire midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger who returned from injury himself. “You could see that it was a big injury, it was quite bad. I wish him all the best, he wasn’t in good shape, he’s always working very, very hard for the team and we need this kind of attitude in our game. It’s hard for us, we only can wish him all the best.
The Fire went ahead on twenty minutes when Maxi Moralez was caught in possession in his own area by Matt Polster and Nemanja Nikolic. The latter would slot the ball past Sean Johnson for the opening score and his now league-leading 21st of the season.
De Leeuw’s injury appeared to take the wind out of the Fire’s sails and NYC equalized two minutes from halftime. Moralez sent a long ball that found David Villa who rounded Matt Lampson for an easy finish and his 20th of the season.
The second half lacked any energy and the only shot on target came from Moralez and was punched away by Lampson in the 65th minute.
“Today obviously we don’t feel good about the tie,” said Paunovic. “We think we played a good game but Michael’s injury was very hard moment in the game for us and we couldn’t adjust to what we needed for the rest of the game which was pace and everything that he was doing. I also think we pushed hard, the guys did a great job in showing the fantastic character today in front of our crowd. However, we are not happy obviously with the point. But we have to move forward, we have two weeks to prepare for the match against Philadelphia. We have two more games now and we will first recover and look to winning all six points. That’s easy to say but not easy to do, but were a confident team especially with this momentum that were building for the next two games and then the playoffs.”
As mentioned, Bastian Schweinsteiger returned to action and played 19 minutes as a sub. He is looking forward to the two-week break to get back into training and back to 100%. He is also looking forward to the playoffs which is a relative first for him.
“When we play actually that kind of game which our coach wants us to play, we can win against any team,” said Schweinsteiger. “It’s possible, we have a very good squad. Every player wants to play, every player is ready to go for it and we believe in ourselves. I think we are also very excited to play playoffs, I think last time was seven years ago. I never had actually in my life playoffs. If you call it in the Champions League playoffs, then I played it quite a lot, but it’s the first time here so I’m looking forward to it.”
But first, the Fire have two weeks off before their final regular season home match on Sunday, October 15th against Philadelphia. Kickoff will be at 4pm on NBC Sports Chicago Plus.
We certainly hope Michael de Leeuw has a full recovery and gets back on the pitch very soon.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-Nemanja Nikolic (unassisted) 20
NYC-David Villa (Moralez) 43
BOOKING SUMMARY:
CHI-Dax McCarty (caution, persistent infringement) 16
NYC-Maxi Moralez (caution, reckless tackle) 71
CHICAGO FIRE (4-3-3): #28-Matt Lampson; #2-Matt Polster, #4-Johan Kappelhof, #66-Joao Meira, #3-Brandon Vincent; #8-Michael de Leeuw (#11-David Accam 30; #16-Jonathan Campbell 86), #6-Dax McCarty, #14-Djordje Mihailovic; #12-Arturo Alvarez (#31-Bastian Schweinsteiger 71), #23-Nemanja Nikolic, #9-Luis Solignac
Subs not used: #45-Richard Sanchez, #5-Michael Harrington, #13-Brandt Bronico, #18-Drew Conner
NEW YORK CITY FC (4-2-3-1): #1-Sean Johnson; #32-Andraz Struna, #13-Frederic Brillant, #6-Alexander Callens, #2-Ben Sweat; #15-Thomas McNamara (#23-Rodney Wallace 61), #8-Alexander Ring; #11-Jack Harrison (#19-Khiry Shelton 76), #10-Maxi Moralez, #30-Yangel Herrera; #7-David Villa
Subs not used: #25-Eirik Johansen, #3-Ethan White, #22-Ronald Matarrita, #21-Andrea Pirlo, #5-Mikey Lopez
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 7-11 NYC
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 2-3 NYC
FOULS: CHI 14-10 NYC
OFFSIDES: CHI 2-3 NYC
CORNER KICKS: CHI 1-3 NYC
SAVES: CHI 2-1 NYC
Referee: Jose Carlos Rivero
Assistant Referees: Andrew Bigelow, Brian Poeschel
Fourth Official: Mark Kadlecik
Video Assistant Referee: Chris Penso
Weather: Clear and 63º
Attendance: 20,195
Man of the Match: Matt Polster (CHI)
Chicago Fire
NYCFC
