Chicago Fire FC 2-0 Toronto FC
CHICAGO, IL—Once again the Fire had a 2-0 lead at halftime at Soldier Field, but this time against Toronto FC, they would keep it that way. A more solid performance from the Fire that lifts them off the foot of the Eastern Conference table and just six points off the playoff places for the time being.
All of the scoring took place within the first 16 minutes of the match and both followed similar patterns. Just four minutes in, Jhon Duran stripped Chris Mavinga of the ball by the center line and went on his way after a give-and-go with Chris Mueller and slot past Quentin Westberg to open the scoring.
Twelve minutes later, Brian Gutierrez used a cheeky flick to Duran who got behind Mavinga and then beat Westberg once again to double the Fire’s lead. Duran becomes the second youngest Fire player after DaMarcus Beasley to score twice in a league match. Gutierrez had a name for his flick-on.
“It’s the ‘Zlatan flick,’ said Gutierrez. “I know [Duran] was there, I just seen him in a quick view and I just tried to do it and it worked out, but he made most of the play [on the goal]as well.”
Gaga Slonina made a pair of saves on the evening—one on Mark-Anthony Kay and one on Domenico Criscito—to maintain his eighth clean sheet of the year.
Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson continued to preach for more consistent performances like this one and one against Philadelphia two weeks ago.
“One of last things when you are building like this is to get consistency, and that’s something we’ve been struggling with all year,” said Hendrickson. “It’s a good 45 [minutes]here and then a bad 45 or a good 20 minutes and a bad 20 minutes. Normally, in games when we don’t have the ball to play, we concede goals. Tonight, we weren’t going to do that.
“I’ve got to give it off to these guys because we challenge them tonight to be courageous, be confident, and be consistent. And it’s hard to do coming off an emotional loss like we did on Saturday, but they found a way to come out and get a two-goal lead and then keep it. We’re still not quite where we want to be, but we know it’s not going to happen overnight and we’re going to just keep building and building.
“Now, it’s a matter of being consistent from game to game. That football tonight, that’s how we want to play. We want to get on teams early, get up early, but keep leads. Not give them away. We don’t want to be a team that’s known to give up leads and give away games in the second half. That’s not our identity.”
The Fire remain home on Saturday to take on Seattle Sounders FC with a 7pm kickoff on WGN-TV to complete the homestand.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-Jhon Duran (Mueller) 4
CHI-Jhon Duran (Gutierrez) 16
BOOKING SUMMARY:
TOR-Shane O’Neill (caution, reckless foul) 34
TOR-Lukas MacNaughton (caution, tactical foul) 37
CHI-Chris Mueller (caution, dissent) 45+1
CHI-Brian Gutierrez (caution, reckless tackle) 64
TOR-Domenico Criscito (caution, tactical foul) 65
TOR-Jayden Nelson (caution, reckless foul) 90+4
CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1): #1-Gaga Slonina; #2-Boris Sekulic, #23-Carlos Teran, #5-Rafael Czichos, #3-Jonathan Bornstein; #31-Federico Navarro, #22-Mauricio Pineda; #8-Chris Mueller (#99-Stanislav Ivanov 76), #10-Xherdan Shaqiri (#7-Jairo Torres 76), #40-Brian Gutierrez (#21-Fabian Herbers 67); #26-Jhon Duran (#11-Kacper Przybylko 67)
Subs not used: #18-Spencer Richey, #36-Andre Reynolds II, #27-Kendall Burks, #9-Chinoso Offor, #14-Jhon Espinoza
TORONTO FC (4-4-2): #16-Quentin Westberg; #47-Kosi Thompson (#7-Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty 72), #27-Shane O’Neill, #23-Chris Mavinga (#5-Lukas MacNaugton 32), #38-Luca Petrasso (#44-Domenico Criscito 63); #8-Mark-Anthony Kaye (#22-Jacob Shaffelburg 63), #4-Michael Bradley, #21-Jonathan Osorio, #29-Deandre Kerr; #9-Jesus Jimenez (#20-Ayo Akinola 46), #11-Jayden Nelson
Subs not used: #25-Alex Bono, #12-Kadin Chung, #99-Ifunanyachi Achara, #77-Jordan Perruzza
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 12-5 TOR
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 6-2 TOR
FOULS: CHI 18-10 TOR
OFFSIDES: CHI 8-2 TOR
CORNER KICKS: CHI 2-5 TOR
SAVES: CHI 2-4 TOR
Referee: Lukasz Szpala
Referee’s Assistants: Jason White, Kevin Lock
4th Official: Elijio Arreguin
VAR: Daniel Radford
Attendance: 10,450
Weather: Sunny and 72º
Man of the Match: Jhon Duran (CHI)
