The Chicago Fire will try to avenge their only defeat of the season when they host the road-weary Philadelphia Union on Saturday night.
Chicago (2-1-3, 9 points) lost 1-0 at Philadelphia on March 11 in a game it finished with nine men following the dismissals of Kei Kamara and Fabian Herbers. But the Fire responded with a 3-3 draw home draw against FC Cincinnati, a team that hasn’t lost this season, to begin a four-match unbeaten run.
And most recently, Kamara scored his second and third goals of the season as Chicago defeated Minnesota United at home last weekend to hand the Loons their first loss of the year.
Most encouragingly, the Fire have six goals in their first four home matches after scoring an MLS-worst 18 at home last season.
“We want to show progress, and what we have told the players is that, guys, playing well for one game, a couple games is one thing, but can you continuously do that?” second-year head coach Ezra Hendrickson said this week. “Can you have some consistency with your progress that you are making?”
The Union (2-4-1, 7 points) will be playing their third away match in 15 days when they try to snap a three-match road losing streak to begin the season.
Some of those struggles are understandable since Philadelphia has also been playing in the CONCACAF Champions League. On Wednesday night in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Union drew Atlas FC 2-2 to earn a quarterfinal series win 3-2 on total goals and advance to the semifinals.
But conventional wisdom suggests that effort in a game played more than a mile above sea level will lead manager Jim Curtin to make some lineup changes on account of fatigue.
The front three of Daniel Gazdag, Julian Carranza and Mikael Uhre played 266 of 270 possible minutes against Atlas, with Carranza scoring both Philly goals. And even Curtin admitted that so far his team has sacrificed some regular-season performances for Champions League pursuits.
“You’re playing a lot more games. And these games are very high-intensity. And they cost you points in the league, which is difficult,” Curtin said after Wednesday’s draw. “But at the end of the day, I’ll sign up to play in these types of games to learn about your group over anything.”
–Field Level Media
