CHICAGO, IL—If there was a match that was a microcosm of how the season has gone for both teams this season, Wednesday’s match at Soldier Field was it. No one would have suspected how the fortunes have changed immensely for both Chicago Fire FC and the New England Revolution since they last met in the opening match this year.
New England continue to be a team that finds ways to win even when in squad rotation mode (Carles Gil, Gustavo Bou, and Tajon Buchanan all started on the bench), while the Fire continue to see its efforts—arguably one of their better performances this season—fall short of victory. Such was the case in New England’s 3-2 win over the Fire that clinches a playoff spot for the former while the latter languish outside the playoff places.
Henry Kessler opened the scoring in the 11th minute after a free kick from Arnor Traustason and a flick-on header from Jon Bell to set things up. Five minutes from halftime, the Fire got a goal off a set piece from a defender as well and Carlos Teran headed in a corner from Gaston Gimenez.
In the second half, New England’s regular starters came on in an effort to gain three points and it started to pay dividends in the 62nd minute. Matt Turner’s long ball went to Gustavo Bou who was able to feed Teal Bunbury to put the Revolution back ahead, 2-1. That lead lasted all of a minute as the Fire responded through Gimenez who returned to the lineup after being forced to miss last Sunday’s match due to a violation of team protocols.
For a while, the Fire were more likely to pick up a winner, but for a goal-line clearance by Kessler and outstanding saves by Turner. Indeed, just as two minutes of stoppage time begain, New England showed their quality as Buchanan fed Carles Gil for the match winner from an acute angle past Gabriel Slonina.
Despite a fighting performance, despite controlling most every stat, the one stat the Fire continue to not go ahead in continues to be goals.
“Yeah, look that is obviously the frustrating thing, right?” said Fire head coach Raphael Wicky. :And that happened quite often in this time, that we have good games, but today was a good game, I think we did. They are the leader of the whole league and we dominated in possession, in shots on goal, shots in total. I think we had big chances. At the end of the day we will take out the positive of that.
“I think the way we played, the way we were flexible to then go into a back four diamond was positive. Our team fought, fought hard, but played well, created a lot of chances and in the end of the day it’s these little details that were we to do better, we have the chance to do better. In the last goal, we have two possibilities to make a foul in minute 92 where we need to be smarter. The second goal is obviously very badly defended. And then our chances, we need to finish them better in the final third. These are the little things. But overall again, this performance where there were a lot of positives against a very strong opponent as we know. But yeah, that is what we take from this game but it’s obviously very, very frustrating.”
The Fire remain home on Sunday to take on the second best team in the East in Nashville SC. Kickoff is at noon on WGN-TV.
SCORING SUMMARY:
NE-Henry Kessler (Bell) 11
CHI-Carlos Teran (Gimenez) 40
NE-Teal Bunbury (Bou) 62
CHI-Gaston Gimenez (Offor) 63
NE-Carles Gil (Buchanan) 90+1
BOOKING SUMMARY:
CHI-Carlos Teran (caution, tactical foul) 17
NE-Scott Caldwell (caution, reckless foul) 32
CHI-Alvaro Medran (caution, reckless foul) 34
CHICAGO FIRE (3-1-4-2): #32-Gabriel Slonina; #23-Carlos Teran, #4-Johan Kappelhof (#7-Ignacio Aliseda 59), #3-Jonathan Bornstein; #30-Gaston Gimenez; #2-Boris Sekulic, #31-Federico Navarro, #10-Alvaro Medran (#8-Luka Stojanovic 76), #6-Miguel Navarro; #27-Robert Beric, #9-Chinoso Offor (#21-Fabian Herbers 76)
Subs not used: #1-Bobby Shuttleworth, #20-Wyatt Omsberg, #22-Mauricio Pineda, #14-Jhon Espinoza, #28-Elliot Collier, #99-Stanislav Ivanov
NEW ENGLAND REVOLUTION (4-3-1-2): #30-Matt Turner; #28-AJ DeLaGarza (#15-Brandon Bye 69), #23-Jon Bell, #4-Henry Kessler, #32-Christian Mafla (#24-DeJuan Jones 84); #5-Wilfrid Kaptoum, #6-Scott Caldwell (#22-Carles Gil 46), #27-Luis Caicedo; #25-Arnor Traustason (#17-Tajon Buchanan 61); #19-Edward Kizza (#7-Gustavo Bou 46), #10-Teal Bunbury
Subs not used: #18-Brad Knighton, #9-Adam Buksa, #2-Andrew Farrell, #8-Matt Polster
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 26-18 NE
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 10-7 NE
FOULS: CHI 15-16 NE
OFFSIDES: CHI 3-1 NE
CORNER KICKS: CHI 9-8 NE
SAVES: CHI 4-8 NE
Referee: Lukasz Szpala
Assistant Referees: Peter Manilkowski, Claudiu Badea
4th Official: Jair Marrufo
VAR: Edvin Jursevic
Attendance: 7,052
Weather: Partly Cloudy and 59º
Man of the Match: Matt Turner (NE)
