GAME PREVIEW: New England at Chicago, 04/13/2003

The 2003 season gets underway for the Fire this weekend, and friends and foes alike will finally be able to see how the upheaval of the offseason translates onto the field. It may be a blessing of sorts that Chicago's first opponent is the last team they faced in 2002, particularly since the Revolution have undergone few changes since that last match in the October playoffs.

In fact, if prodigal son Joe-Max Moore sits out with the ankle problems that have plagued him in practice during the week, the Revs may field a lineup on Sunday almost identical to last year's, providing a perfect benchmark for this year's edition of the Men in Red. As such, the keys to this game are somewhat easier to predict.

Obviously, Taylor Twellman is a problem. However, with CJ Brown nursing a neck injury suffered in practice, the Fire may get a little more speed and tenacity in the back in Evan Whitfield. This could be an interesting matchup, although Whitfield is playing his first competitive (i.e., non-exhibition) match in nearly a year. If he's able to keep the high-scoring Twellman off the board, it could be a very good comeback year for the US Olympian.

Later in the 2002 season, it became obvious that one of the keys to controlling Twellman was to work over Steve Ralston on the right side of the Revolution midfield. During the playoffs, it was Orlando Perez who filled that role admirably. However, given the state of the Fire lineup, it's not clear that Perez will be on the field this time, which means the job may fall to either midfielder DaMarcus Beasley or defender Carlos Bocanegra. With a World Cup vet and the reigning defender of the year as options, that's a battle the Fire should win. The wild card may be Winston Griffiths, who could benefit from all the attention paid to Twellman.

On the other side of the ball, a Fire attack full of question marks will face a Revolution defense that looked awfully good towards the end of the year. The central pairing of Carlos Llamosa and Daouda Kante will be tough to penetrate, so it will be incumbent upon Chicago to take the ball at defenders in order to stretch them out. Andy Williams, DaMarcus Beasley and Rodrigo Faria all have the kind of ballhandling abilities to pull this off, but the important thing will be the team's ability to run off the ball and receive the pass once the defensive shape is compromised.

At this particular moment, I'm not sure that the Fire will be able to make that last pass out of trouble, but they will be able to penetrate enough to get fouled, and Bocanegra's emergence as a threat on set pieces quite possibly will be the offensive firepower the team needs in this match.

PREDICTION: Fire 1 (Bocanegra), Revolution 1 (Griffiths)