PREFACE: On this Memorial Day, we remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice to preserve our freedoms and our Democracy in wars foreign and domestic. Hope everyone ha enjoyed their Memorial Day Weekend.
FIRE: Given the last couple of years, last week’s win against Miami was a departure from the script. Saturday’s loss to Montreal followed it mostly to a T. That script? The Fire have several chances to score, but take none of them. The other team has few chances, but one defensive lapse leads to a goal and three points. The 2019 away win against Orlando was not only the last where they won away from home, it’s also the last where ether won despite conceding the first goal.
Only four times under Raphael Wicky has the team come back to draw after conceding first (14 losses). One has to openly wonder if the Fire are capable of changing their fortunes or waiting until after the season when plenty of contracts are up and the logo changes in time for the club’s 25th season–which would mark yet another re-boot of this team whose fanbase is impatient for things to turn around and will eventually let Joe Mansueto know by not showing up at Soldier Field.
It’s simply back to square one with the Fire as they regressed yet again to their habits under Wicky. They have at least three weeks to work on changing things before their match against Columbus on June 19th.
PHOTOS: For those who would like to see photos of the match, please click the link to our Smugmug folder for Amanda Cortese’s photos of Saturday’s match.
RED STARS: It started well enough for the Red Stars, but the Houston Dash chipped away and flipped a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 win. It ended a stretch of three matches in eight days for the Red Stars, but with a 1-2-1 record. A lot will depend on Rachel Hill, Mallory Pugh, and Kealia Watt getting on the same page and scoring goals for the team. None of them have to have Sam Kerr levels in terms of goals, but their goals will be needed for a top six finish this season. Next up is a matinee in Bridgeview against a North Carolina side who thrashed Racing Louisville, 5-0, over the weekend.
COPA AMERICA: With just two weeks before the start of the tournament, Argentina pulled out of hosting the event after a rise in COVID-19 cases in the country (over 21,000 cases and 348 deaths reported on Sunday). This after former co-host Colombia pulled out because of increasing social and economic unrest in that country (and also COVID).
On Monday, CONMEBOL is now planning to host that tournament in Brazil. The CBF in Brazil according to a CNN report said that they are ‘still in negotiations‘ to host the tournament which is due to start June 13th (competing virtually head-to-head with a rescheduled Euro 2020). It would be back-to-back tournaments for Brazil after hosting in 2019. Brazil has the second-highest number of deaths from COVID behind the USA (462,791 at the time of this posting) and third most confirmed cases at over 16.5 million (behind India and the USA) which is more than Argentina and Colombia combined (almost 7.2 million).
If one can find the logic in hosting this tournament in Brazil, please tweet it to us @ProstSoccer as we have nothing.
