90-minute Men

For the third straight week, the Chicago Fire gave up late goals to turn a 1-0 halftime lead into a 2-1 loss at the hands of Western rival and current monkey-on-their-back, the Los Angeles Galaxy. In those three matches, the Fire gave up game winners in the 87th, 89th and 90th minute. This doesn't even count the Galaxy's first goal, which at minute 79, was practically in the first half. All told, the Fire have yielded more than 1/3 of their goals this year after the 75th minute of play, 13 out of 35. After watching these games slip away, Fire fans are scratching their heads and pointing fingers. Who is to blame for this stunning lack of focus, fitness, or both?

The answer seems clear. Injuries have decimated the Fire ranks this season, and in doing so, may have exposed a major part of the team's strategy by it's absence. The telling statistic is that the Fire have allowed more shots on goal this season than in any other. On the one hand, that makes goalkeeper Zach Thornton look good, as he's stopped the lion's share of them. In the past, though, teams haven't been able to tee up on the Fire like this because of the strength of the midfield. They just couldn't get close enough. As such, it's the loss of Chris Armas to a torn ACL that has made more of a difference than perhaps all the other injuries the team has suffered combined. Not only would Armas neutralize attacks before they even threatened Thornton's goal, he would do it from whistle to whistle with hardly a change in intensity. And you can't fault Jesse Marsch too much for trying to fill in. He seems to have recognized that he needs to be pushing non-stop, but those are some pretty big cleats to fill. Marsch also doesn't have, natch, a Jesse Marsch to back him up. The two most likely candidates to give 100% supporting Cap'n Jesse in the defensive midfield were Evan Whitfield and Sergi Daniv, both of whom, naturally, went down with injuries.

At first, coach Bob Bradley tried to patch things up with rookies, but neither Kelly Gray nor Billy Sleeth seemed to fill the void. To be fair, Gray has looked strong either as a defender, or as a more attack-minded mid, but not both at the same time, and both first-year players, according to reports, struggled with the pace of playing soccer every day. At that point, things just went from bad to worse, with injuries claiming veterans Peter Nowak and Hristo Stoitchkov, and MLS suddently needed to created new roster designations to describe our situation.

"Season-ending injury replacement player" David Vaudreuil has played more in the back than in the midfield, and "Long-term call-up (three or more players on injured reserve)" Billy Walsh, while an adequate option, just doesn't seem to have the intensity required. That leaves precious few options going into the final two games of the season, and near as I can figure, here they are:

Back to three in the back. One avenue to winning the midfield is just outnumbering your opponent. As we've seen defender Carlos Bocanegra get further forward into the attack, why not explicitly line him up in front of Orlando Perez, Jim Curtin and CJ Brown? The Fire have gone with a 4-4-2 for most of this season, and while it's hard to judge the results of that without taking into account the lineup issues, a return to the five-man midfield wouldn't expose the backline if it severely limited how often that backline got tested.

The days of Vaudreuil. As mentioned earlier, Vaud has played mostly as a defender, but he still is one of the hardest-working players on the team, at least who isn't walking with a limp. Slotting him in the midfield, especially with Dema Kovalenko suspended for this Saturday's match in Columbus, might give Marsch the help he needs.

Give the people what they want. If Kelly Gray is the answer, Bradley needs to get the youngster to stay focused on his defensive responsibilities for the duration of the match, even if it means sacrificing the attack. Any lineup with Gray and Curtin in it should strengthen the team defensively on size alone, but that hasn't been enough so far this season.

Focus on the positive. I can't imagine there's anything more to say about maintaining focus after the second consecutive late-goal loss, let alone the third, so the important thing is to look at the first half against Los Angeles. Chicago played some of it's more inspired ball of the season in those 45 minutes, and working to keep that going rather than focusing on not screwing up at the end is probably the proper psychological approach.

Will any of these be enough to keep the Fire afloat into the post-season? We'll have to wait and see. It's conceivable that the threat of missing the playoffs for the first time ever will be motivation enough, or that the ideal conditions of Columbus Crew stadium will be the tonic the team needs. The way this season has gone, the one thing that isn't surprising is that it had come down to the wire. But even through all the adversity, the Fire are in a position to control their destiny, and even, with a little help, win the East. We just have to hope the Fire don't let all of 2002 get away on a late collapse.