Unprepared for Unpredictable Outcomes

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not concerned about two straight losses by the Chicago Fire, where they gave up three goals two weeks in a row and had the ignominious honor of being the first team beaten by expansion side Toronto FC.

(I'm also not going to read BigSoccer if I can avoid it, because the histrionics over there have gotten to be too much to bear after the team loses. Or even wins without enough panache for that crowd. But that's another story.)

Anyway, the Fire had a pretty good handle on the game through the first half, from which they emerged tied at one after a cracker of a shot from the red-hot Chris Rolfe.

Then, in the second half, everything fell apart, but it's important to remember that, in the second half, both teams were playing down a man after the ejections of Diego Gutierrez and Danny Dichio. With both Rolfe and Chad Barrett still in the game, that means the Fire were playing in a 3-4-2, while Toronto was in a 4-4-1. Plus, I think there was some tactical shifting that moved Dasan Robinson from left back to right midfield again. This is important, because it was the right midfielder spot that was victimized twice to blow the game for the Fire.

On two separate instances, CJ Brown drifted centrally, and Toronto got a man wide open on the far post. First, it was Robinson not dropping into that space, which may have had something to do with him having to shift roles and responsibilities. The second time, Calen Carr had come in to provide extra offense, and apparently zero defense, as he could be seen standing around at midfield when Maurice Edu buried the third goal.

So, on the one hand, I don't think Dave Sarachan had his team well-prepared to play with ten guys coming out of the locker room in the second half. Or at least Mo Johston had his guys better prepared. On the other, you can't really prepare for a 10-v-10 match where you've lost a defensive midfielder and they've lost a forward. It's not like there's a clear game plan. Yes, we still should have done better -- and the inability to improvise has been a longstanding problem with Sarachan's squads -- but the circumstances were pretty weird.

For the record, had Sarachan opted to keep Logan Pause on the right side of the midfield, neither of those second-half Toronto goals would have happened. Period. Fans can slag him all they want because he's not a flashy, offensive player, but he understands positioning as well or better than anyone else on this team, and would not have left that post exposed like that.

The biggest issue facing this team right now is that there are not nearly enough players who can dictate the pace of the game, who can force the other team to react to them. You've got Chris Rolfe, and you've got Justin Mapp. This is why I subscribed to the view that former Fire forward Nate Jaqua was effective -- both up top and on the right side of the midfield -- because he was, in the Sarachan parlance, "a handful." He forced defenses to deal with him.

Obviously, help is on the way in this exact dimension in the form of Cuauhtemoc Blanco. In the meantime, I wouldn't mind the Fire picking up this Scottish striker that apparently can't gain entrance to Canada to play for Toronto.