CHICAGO, IL—The best start for Chicago Fire FC in 13 years continued in an energetic and spirited performance as they defeated Sporting Kansas City, 3-1, at Soldier Field. The win over Sporting KC is the first since 2016.
Getting Kacper Przybylko involved more in the attack was a priority coming into the match and the Fire accomplished that in a big way on Saturday night. Przybylko would break through at the half hour mark after being fed a pass from Fabian Herbers and then shooting it through the legs of Tim Melia and into the net for his first as a member of the Fire.
Xherdan Shaqiri got the ball rolling with the pass to Herbers that led to the first goal. Shaqiri would get the Fire’s second goal on the night from the penalty spot in the 50th minute after Mauricio Pineda was clipped in the box by Kortne Ford.
One thing that did not last for the Fire was their shoutout streak. That ended at 326 minutes after Felipe Hernandez fed Roger Espinoza who scored from point-blank range to pull one back for the visitors.
The two-goal lead was ultimately restored for good eight minutes from time after a takeaway in midfield by Gaston Gimenez sent Brian Gutierrez on his way. Gutierrez then crossed to Przybylko who got his second of the evening and sealed the three points.
Even though it is early days in the season, Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson called it a complete performance from his team.
“Yeah, I just told the guys in there, that was probably our most complete performance so far this year,” said Hendrickson. “I was really proud of them, the kind of effort they put in tonight, because that’s not an easy team to play against. You know, they’re a very physical and very aggressive team, but I thought we matched their intensity from start to finish. It’s good to see that we got multiple goals again, so that’s always good. But all in all, great game by the guys tonight. I was very happy, very pleased with them.”
This was also despite picking up knocks after last week’s match with DC United. Both Gaga Slonina and Raphael Czichos were listed as questionable, but both started and played all 90 minutes.
“You know, it was a rough week for us. We had some injuries, you know, we had some knocks, some guys were carrying some injuries. We didn’t know how it was going to turn out. We kind of had to back off training on Thursday. (We) just did some soccer-tennis and stuff, just so guys could recover, because the first part of the week was rough. Coming back from D.C. at 2 a.m. Saturday night, early Sunday morning, then losing an hour. And then we had to get up and train and regen on Sunday. It kind of took some out of our legs. But Thursday, we backed off a little bit and I think it showed tonight, I think that helped.”
The Fire will get next week off as there is a weekend of internationals coming up. The Fire next play in two weeks (April 2nd) when they host FC Dallas. Kickoff is at 2:30pm on Univision and TUDN in Spanish and English commentary on Twitter.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-Kacper Przybylko (Herbers, Shaqiri) 30
CHI-Xherdan Shaqiri (penalty kick) 50
SKC-Roger Espinoza (Hernandez, Duke) 56
CHI-Kacper Przybylko (Gutierrez, Shaqiri) 82
BOOKING SUMMARY:
SKC-Andreu Fontas (caution, tactical foul) 35
CHI-Fabian Herbers (caution, delaying a restart) 37
SKC-Graham Zusi (caution, dissent) 53
CHI-Xherdan Shaqiri (caution, delaying a restart) 74
CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1): #1-Gaga Slonina; #2-Boris Sekulic, #20-Wyatt Omsberg, #5-Raphael Czichos, #6-Miguel Navarro; #22-Mauricio Pineda (#31-Federico Navarro 73), #30-Gaston Gimenez; #99-Stanislav Ivanov (#40-Brian Gutierrez 63), #10-Xherdan Shaqiri, #21-Fabian Herbers (#3-Jonathan Bornstein 73); #11-Kacper Przybylko
Subs not used: #18-Spencer Richey, #9-Chinoso Offor, #14-Jhon Espinoza, #27-Kevin Burks, #37-Javier Casas Jr., #33-Victor Bezerra
SPORTING KANSAS CITY (4-3-3): #29-Tim Melia; #12-Kortne Ford, #5-Nicolas Ismat-Martin, #3-Andreu Fontas, #2-Ben Sweat (#18-Logan Ndenbe 77); #21-Felipe Hernandez, #54-Remi Walter, #15-Roger Espinoza (#17-Jake Davis 86); #8-Graham Zusi, #19-Nikola Vujnovic, #28-Cam Duke (#27-Marinos Tzionis 62)
Subs not used: #1-John Pulskamp, #25-Ozzie Cisneros, #48-Kaveh Rad, #24-Kayden Pierre, #4-Robert Voloder
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 10-7 SKC
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 3-2 SKC
FOULS: CHI 15-17 SKC
OFFSIDES: CHI 5-2 SKC
CORNER KICKS: CHI 4-1 SKC
SAVES: CHI 1-0 SKC
Referee: Timothy Ford
Assistant Referees: Chris Elliott, Gjovalin Bori
4th Official: Calin Radoslav
VAR: Carol Ann Chenard
Weather: Rain and 41º
Attendance: 9,352
Man of the Match: Kacper Przybylko (CHI)
