Let The Rookie Win

When I looked at the lineup sheet for the first leg of the Chicago-New England conference semifinal series on Sunday. I was a little worried. On the one hand, it was the same Fire lineup that beat DC United the previous week. On the other, with the left side covered by Dasan Robinson, Gonzalo Segares and Ivan Guerrero, I was concerned that all three of those guys like to get forward, and that could mean Steve Ralston would be able to find space in behind them.

Less than two minutes in to the match, my fears began to be realized, as Ralston made a penetrating run that was turned aside by Chicago goalkeeper Matt Pickens. Ralston set himself up really high, which forced the Fire to change their shape and almost play with Segares as a fullback, with Robinson sliding into the middle.

Then, in the second half, something changed. As near as I could tell, Revolution coach Steve Nicol thought that Clint Dempsey might be able to exploit rookie Dasan Robinson on defense. Two things are important here. First, he can't. And second, this forced Ralston back deeper into the midfield, entirely neutralizing the mismatch over Segares that New England had enjoyed in the first half. As a result, New England was unable to find the back of the Fire net -- although Pickens also had something to do with that -- and Chicago finished the day with a 1-0 victory putting them in the driver's seat going into the return leg next Saturday.

Nicol, to me, seemed to shoot himself in the foot by buying into the hype that his squad would live and die by Dempsey, and by focusing on his matchups, screwed up the thing that was working the best for the team up to that point.

The Fire will need to solve the Ralston problem in New England in order to advance, but up a goal and having been successful in Gilette this year, that might not be too tall an order.