Chicago Fire FC 1-0 Philadelphia Union
CHICAGO, IL—In a match between top and bottom in the East, it was bottom side up as the Fire nabbed a 1-0 win over Philadelphia Union on a Wednesday night at Soldier Field.
The Fire moved off the foot of both the Eastern Conference and the overall league table with the win in a match that saw the return of Xherdan Shaqiri to the lineup after missing the last two games with a hamstring issue. Andre Reynolds II made his first career league start at left back.
The Fire had the better of chances in the first half with the closest coming in the ninth minute as a Shaqiri cross came to Rafaell Czichos, but scuffed his shot past the wrong side of the post.
The Union nearly poached a goal three minutes into the second half as substitute Chris Burke headed from close range which Gaga Slonina pushed on to the post and bounced on the line a couple times, but not going over it before Slonina gathered.
The Fire withstood the Union’s attack and their own finally was rewarded in the 68th minute as Boris Sekulic fed Federico Navarro whose shot just got past Andre Blake for the game’s only score.
The Union’s night got worse five minutes later after Jose Martinez was sent off for a second yellow card on the night. The Union almost went two goals behind in the 77th minute, but for a friendly crossbar on Kacper Przybylko’s header.
It turned out not to be needed as the Fire would hold on for the win. Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson hopes that the win will lead to more consistent performances that could lift the club.
“Well, you hope so, you know?”, said Hendrickson. “As I spoke of earlier, we hope now that we can build this into a more consistent effort from game to game, because you just beat the first-place team in your conference, and that gives you a little bit of confidence, and hopefully it gives us some momentum going into the rest of these games. But the games are gonna come quickly and we just got to find a way of being ready game in and game out, and just showing that consistent effort as we did tonight. And I think if we do that, I think we’ll be fine. So, hopefully, this is a confidence booster for the guys because being in last place, it’s really hard. It’s really hard when you’re in every game but you somehow come up short. But I think tonight, we stuck with it even when it looked like they weren’t going to back down, they weren’t gonna give up. They’re gonna continue to fight because they’re a good team. We just kept fighting and kept fighting and kept pushing, and finally, the dam broke and we were able to get a goal.”
The Fire travel West to San Jose for a Sunday night encounter. Kickoff is at 8pm CT on WGN-TV.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-Federico Navarro (Sekulic) 68
BOOKING SUMMARY:
PHI-Jose Martinez (caution, tactical foul) 29
PHI-Alejandro Bedoya (caution, tactical foul) 35
CHI-Carlos Teran (caution, tactical foul) 50
PHI-Jose Martinez (sent off, second bookable offense) 73
PHI-Kai Wagner (caution, persistent infringement) 78
PHI-Daniel Gazdag (caution, reckless foul) 83
CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1): #1-Gaga Slonina; #2-Boris Sekulic, #23-Carlos Teran, #5-Raphael Czichos, #36-Andre Reynolds II (#3-Jonathan Bornstein 65); #31-Federico Navarro, #30-Gaston Gimenez; #21-Fabian Herbers (#40-Brian Gutierrez 65), #10-Xherdan Shaqiri, #8-Chris Mueller (#14-Jhon Espinoza 85); #11-Kacper Przybylko
Subs not used: #18-Spencer Richey, #99-Stanislav Ivanov, #37-Javier Casas, #9-Chinoso Offor, #26-Jhon Duran, #33-Victor Bezerra
PHILADELPHIA UNION (4-3-1-2): #18-Andre Blake; #26-Nathan Harriel (#15-Olivier Mbaizo 46), #5-Jakob Glesnes, #3-Jack Elliott, #27-Kai Wagner; #31-Leon Flach, #8-Jose Martinez, #11-Alejando Bedoya; #6-Daniel Gazdag; #9-Julian Carranza (#19-Cory Burke 46), #7-Mikael Uhre (#25-Chris Donovan 66)
Subs not used: #1-Matt Freese, #12-Joe Bendik, #2-Matt Real, #4-Stuart Findlay, #13-Cole Turner
TOTAL SHOTS: CHI 14-8 PHI
SHOTS ON GOAL: CHI 3-2 PHI
FOULS: CHI 12-13 PHI
OFFSIDES: CHI 2-1 PHI
CORNER KICKS: CHI 7-4 PHI
SAVES: CHI 2-2 PHI
Referee: Michael Radchuk
Assistant Referees: Logan Brown, Adam Wienckowski
4th Official: Tori Penso
VAR: Edvin Jurisevic
Weather: Sunny and 80º
Attendance: 10,384
Man of the Match: Federico Navarro (CHI)
