Chicago Fire 1- New England Revolution 1
BRIDGEVIEW, IL–The Fire’s first winning streak of the season remains elusive as is the red line. Three points became one as the Fire were held, 1-1, by New England at Toyota Park.
The Fire remain one point behind sixth-place Orlando and ahead of Philadelphia on goals scored.
The Fire’s goal came in the 63rd minute when Bastian Schweinsteiger and Aleksandar Katai played a give-and-go leading to the former scoring his second of the year.
Richard Sanchez made five saves on the night, but it was a fumble of a ball while under pressure from Diego Fagundez in the 83rd minute that allowed Teal Bunbury to score an equalizer and the Revolution to put some distance between themselves in fifth and Orlando in sixth.
Revolution head coach Brad Friedel had some mixed emotions about getting a point in Bridgeview.
“I’m happy from going a goal down to come back and get a point,” said Friedel. “I thought we had a lot of domination in the second half. We created a lot of opportunities in the second half. I felt we were little bit unlucky that we didn’t score two or three in that second half. So I’m a little bit disappointed that we didn’t come away with all three points, but the boys showed a lot of character to claw back to 1-1.”
Meanwhile, Fire head coach Veljko Paunovic was happier with the performance tonight compared to last Saturday against San Jose, but dropping two points was painful.
“It’s painful because I think the majority of the time we controlled the game, not always with the ball, but with control of defensive shapes and the effort and matchup we had with different positions on the field were great,” said Paunovic. “Huge performance from the team and it hurts a lot when you drop two points this way, but it happens and we’ll keep learning from our mistakes, and I hope that we will learn from our opponents’ mistakes. We still have to grow. We’re still young from committing mistakes and we’ll get better. It’s a process.”
The Fire will travel to Colorado to play the match which was originally scheduled for March 3rd this year, but moved to Wednesday due to the Rapids’ participation in the CONCACAF Champions League. Kickoff is at 8pm CT.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-Bastian Schweinsteiger (Katai) 63
NE-Teal Bunbury (Fagundez) 82
BOOKING SUMMARY:
NE-Claude Dielna (caution, reckless foul) 31
NE-Teal Bunbury (caution, delaying a restart) 83
CHICAGO FIRE (4-3-3): #45-Richard Sanchez; #25-Jorge Corrales, #4-Johan Kappelhof, #5-Kevin Ellis, #3-Brandon Vincent; #31-Bastian Schweinsteiger, #6-Dax McCarty (#13-Brandt Bronico 83), #19-Mo Adams; #9-Luis Solignac (#17-Diego Campos 77), #23-Nemanja Nikolic (#21-Alan Gordon 20), #10-Aleksandar Katai
Subs not used: #30-Stefan Cleveland, #16-Jonathan Campbell, #27-Rafael Ramos, #20-Daniel Johnson
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION (4-2-3-1): #30-Matt Turner; #2-Andrew Farrell, #19-Antonio Mlinar Delamea, #3-Jalil Anibaba #4-Claude Dielna; #27-Luis Caicedo, #11-Kelyn Rowe (#21-Zachary Herivaux 75); #9-Krisztian Nemeth (#17-Juan Agudelo 69), #14-Diego Fagundez, #70-Cristian Penilla; #10-Teal Bunbury
Subs not used: #18-Brad Knighton, #23-Wilfried Zahibo, #6-Scott Caldwell, #21-Zachary Herivaux, #7-Brian Wright, #15-Brandon Bye
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 11-18 NE
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 2-6 NE
FOULS: CHI 10-14 NE
OFFSIDES: CHI 4-0 NE
CORNER KICKS: CHI 2-11 NE
SAVES: CHI 5-1 NE
Referee: Kevin Stott
Referee’s Assistants: Peter Balciunas, Jeremy Kieso
4th Official: Kevin Broadley
Video Assistant Referee: Jorge Gonzalez
Weather: Sunny and 70º
Attendance: 14,415
Man of the Match: Bastian Schweinsteiger (CHI)
Chicago Fire
NE Revolution
