Fire Score a Goal, But Woes Continue

CHICAGO, IL—The good news was that the Fire finally scored a goal at home after 457 minutes at home. The bad news is they still lost, 3-1, to Columbus Crew and their winless streak extended to seven matches and their losing streak to four. 

This loss had many of the aspects of a usual loss for the Fire. Opportunities to generate chances and take advantage of Columbus errors, but being too passive in front of goal. The defense shutting off and/or have a brain cramp for one moment leading to an opposition as was the case in the 30th minute. Diego Rossi’s initial shot was parried in the air by Chris Brady. Both Andrew Gutman and Rafael Czichos went after the ball and neither got a good touch leading to Rossi scoring on the rebound. 

Ten minutes into the second half, Christian Ramirez would head in a cross from Mo Farsi to double Columbus’s advantage. Five minutes from time, there was a hope spot as off a corner of their own, Carlos Teran managed to find the target to pull one back for the Fire. That hope spot would be extinguished three mintues later after as Jacen Russell-Rowe finished things off with a great finish. 

Head coach Frank Klopas continues to try and find solutions, but nothing has worked so far to get out of this funk.

“It’s obviously difficult,” said Klopas. “We created good moments – there were good moments in the game – but again, I think it’s the little things that just seem not to be going our way right now. It’s tough for me, it’s tough for all of us. A lot of people care– I mean, it’s not a good feeling. The fans care, we all care.

“People seem to forget, it’s very easy– it’s what have you done for me lately, which is understandable. I’m in a position where I have to find a way to put the team– to find the right way. We’ve tried different things and right now we just haven’t been able to do that.”

What’s very troubling is that’s not one specific issue, but a multitude of them and not as many ideas as to how to address them.

“It’s hard to find answers to pinpoint the exact problem that we have,” said Fire midfielder Fabian Herbers. “I think we’re not creating as many chances up front that we sometimes used to. Or at least at home games, I feel like we always like had it a little bit [easier]to score goals, at least get the fans excited. But it feels like fans aren’t even excited if we put in a cross or an approach to the area of the 18-yard box. It feels tough, it feels like we don’t have many ideas and even though we all want to be better, you can’t just say that it’s only bad luck. But certainly moments like the ones there were today just kind of sums it up. Like, where are we at? [Columbus] had half a chance and they scored. The luck is also not on our side, but yeah, it definitely feels like we have a lack of ideas in the front and not creating enough chances to score goals.”

The Fire will try again at DC United next Saturday at 6:30pm CT on Apple TV. However, the reality is that there are a lack of ideas on how to change things, maybe things within the club need to change and invite ideas from the outside on how to change the Fire’s fortunes. 

SCORING SUMMARY:
CLB-Diego Rossi (unassisted) 30
CLB-Christian Ramirez (Farsi) 55
CHI-Carlos Teran (Koutsias) 85
CLB-Jacen Russell-Rowe (Amundsen) 88

BOOKING SUMMARY:
CHI-Rafael Czichos (caution, tactical foul) 24
CHI-Brian Gutierrez (caution, reckless tackle) 45+1
CHI-Federico Navarro (caution, reckless foul) 90+3

CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1):  #34-Chris Brady; #15-Andrew Gutman, #5-Rafael Czichos, #4-Carlos Teran, #27-Allan Arigoni; #30-Gaston Gimenez (#23-Kellyn Acosta 46), #31-Federico Navarro; #8-Chris Mueller (#7-Maren Haile-Selassie 67), #17-Brian Gutierrez (#10-Xhedan Shaqiri 67), #21-Fabian Herbers (#19-Georgios Koutsias 57); #9-Hugo Cuypers (#12-Tom Barlow 70)

Subs not used:  #18-Spencer Richey, #22-Mauricio Pineda, #24-Jonathan Dean, #2-Arnaud Souquet

COLUMBUS CREW (3-4-2-1):  #28-Patrick Schulte; #21-Yevhen Cheberko, #4-Rudy Camacho, #31-Steven Moreira; #3-Will Sands (#18-Malte Amundsen 73), #8-Aidan Morris (#25-Sean Zawadzki 46), #6-Darlington Nagbe, #23-Mo Farsi; #10-Diego Rossi, #11-Marino Hinestroza (#19-Jacen Russell-Rowe 41); #17-Christian Ramirez (#20-Alex Matan 73)

Subs not used:  #1-Nicholas Hagen, #5-Derrick Jones, #14-Yaw Yeboah, #16-Taha Habroune, #27-Marx Arfsten

EXPECTED GOALS:  CHI 3.0-1.7 CLB
TOTAL SHOTS:  CHI 13-9 CLB
SHOTS ON GOAL:  CHI 5-5 CLB
FOULS:  CHI 22-7 CLB
OFFSIDES:  CHI 1-1 CLB
CORNER KICKS:  CHI 9-5 CLB
SAVES:  CHI 2-4 CLB

Referee:  Ricardo Fierro
Assistant Referees:  Brooke Mayo, Jeremy Hanson
4th Official:  Lukasz Szpala
VAR:  Younes Marrakchi
AVAR:  Fabio Tovar
Weather:  Sunny and 78º
Attendance:  23,319
Man of the Match: Diego Rossi (CLB)