I think this is the first time the Fire have ever been on a local broadcast network other than national ABC broadcasts, which limits things to All-Star Games and MLS Cups. In this regard, this game is the one the Fire were able to force My50 to take in order to get the (potential) Beckham match, so how they do here will be interesting. Comments will likely bounce back between the soccer and the broadcast side as a result.
- Okay, I don't want to pick on Chris, but did he just say that the middle and outside backs are critical parts of the backline? Aren't they the only parts of the backline?
- Hueb blows it in the first segment. Chad Rolfe? And I don't buy into the notion that Chris Rolfe in the midfield is a good idea, so the first Sarah Kustok segment didn't work for me.
- "The Chicago Fire on My50 is..." disconcertingly out of focus while they go through the sponsors. And they missed the kickoff. Well done, kids. Barrett actually did well with that, where he has had a tendency to lose the ball when he runs into traffic.
- Conde with his first bad pass of the day within two minutes.
- Okay, so the first press release was right, and the one on Friday was wrong. Huebner is doing play-by-play.
- Conde with another wasted ball out of the back, with a free kick that would have met the same fate had Chris Armas not corralled the second bounce.
- Barrett should have shot, but Carr was wide open if he could have gotten it to him.
- I'm not totally unfair. Conde with a good rise for a header off the corner kick, but Perkins gets there.
- Carr should see at least yellow for that challenge on Perkins. Took three replays to figure out that it was Chris Armas with that nice ball out of the midfield.
- Barrett's had some good fight in him for a couple of games now, but that last decision just keeps letting him down, this time on a poorly weighted pass to Chris Rolfe that would have resulted in a shot had it reached him.
- And there you go. Barrett's hard work pays off on a play that goes all the way back to the Fire's penalty area. C.J. Brown knocks it down, Conde plays it to Logan Pause, who makes a nice move to sidestep the onrushing Jaime Moreno. He then finds Blanco -- and keep watching Pause, as he will find Blanco nine times out of ten the way Chris Armas used to find Peter Nowak -- and Blanco carries it a good twenty yards unscathed through the midfield before picking out Barrett, who shields off one of the Brians -- Namoff? -- and cuts it back for the goal. Wonderful team effort.
- It looks like we're playing a bit of a 3-3-2-2, with Rolfe and Blanco both having freedom to roam side to side in front of Gutierrez, Armas and Pause. If we space it right, it can work, but it also mutate into a sort of 6-4 with no midfield. So far, we're spacing it right.
- Chris Doran with an unnamed shoutout to the late Brandon Kitchens with regard to Calen Carr's black headband, so kudos for that. Chris is doing better than I would have thought in the color role, as he tended to be a bit too dry when he would analyze from the sideline. Hueb's not doing to badly, either.
- Chad needs to shoot. Have I mentioned that?
- 27th minute and we're starting to see that defensive midfield line drifting back a bit too far, giving DC space to bring the ball up and then not having anywhere for the ball to go when the Fire win it back.
- Great step up from Dasan Robinson. Nice switch by Blanco and then a good ball in from Gutierrez.
- Calen Carr needs to move better off the ball. He's standing next to Blanco outside the box, and while Blanco eventually gets the foul call, he should have had somewhere to go with it sooner. CJ Brown with a chance on the restart.
- Okay, we have the obligatory Jim Belushi interview out of the way, but I will say he sounds like he means it when he says he's enjoying the game. That, or he's drunk. Or a little of both.
- Credit where it's due, Dominic Mediate does a great job separating himself to get a wicked shot on goal that Pickens parries out for a corner, but part of that was that space in front of, this time, seven Fire players dropping just a bit too deep.
- And now Blanco needs to shoot instead of pass, too, as Diego's shot gets blocked for a corner.
- Another corner for the Fire. I haven't kept track on that utter lack of correlation between corners and wins that was so striking earlier in the season.
- Fire under some pressure in the late stages of the first half. Conde with a nice takeaway, then trips over the ball. I don't think he's even our second-best defender out there right now, to be honest.
- Chris Armas has had a couple of really nice balls from behind the midfield stripe now. Certainly better than one unnamed, overhyped Columbian that I've been picking on.
- In the interest of fairness, Logan Pause nowhere to be found picking up an overlapping DC run on the Fire's right side, and Conde with a composed goal line clearance.
- Halftime. The Fire will have to put a stop to the pressure DC United has been applying late in the first half. If we're back on our heels defending for too much of the second half, we could easily repeat what happened on Thursday night. That means possession, and more specifically, that the defense and defensive midfield has to find the quartet of Blanco, Rolfe, Carr and Barrett early and often, and not just bang it out of trouble only to have DC win the ball back at midfield right away.
- Did it take us a full year and a half to get that Toyota Park commercial? If so, why? Will it air outside of these matches? And I really should have trademarked "Tradition. Honor. Passion." I'm tempted to find the e-mail where I suggested it, in case you don't believe that it was my choice of wording. You don't want to know what that sign was going to say before that.
- From the halftime score updates...Razon? Oopsie. Now a long, lingering shot of Jamie, one of the owners of The Globe. And a guest voiceover from JP Dellacamera for the legal disclaimer. And "Off Sides" is not two words. And I'm nitpicking, I know.
- With apologies to Mayor Landek, I like that full screen "Chicago Fire soccer at 71st and Harlem" graphic in the ad for the Revolution match. No mention of Bridgeview whatsoever. Ideally, they should clean that up a bit and use it instead of those awful billboards they have up now.
- Yeah, I'm all over the place here, deal with it. Since giving up on the message boards, this is my only outlet for all this crap rattling around in my head.
- "We have to be more clinical in our finishing" is the new "we have to manage the game." DRINK.
- I don't know if that was an intentional dummy from Barrett or if he just got tangled up at the top of the box, but Carr makes something out of nothing but goes wide.
- Rolfe with some good hard work in the corner, but the eventual cross is a bit too high for anyone to do much with.
- C.J. Brown doing exactly what I had hoped at the break -- a composed pass up to Rolfe after a bit of a scrum in the back, who hits Blanco, but Blanco can't keep it in play.
- Blanco with a twenty-yard approach on a free kick. Nice.
- Now there's a little too much chaos in our own penalty box for my liking.
- Chris Doran is a lot more tactical in his commentary than Kenny Stern, I think, but I'm pretty sure he coaches a lot.
- Excellent play off the restart, and Conde makes a run and gets a pretty good shot off of a looping free kick from Blanco. I've said it before, the pre-Blanco team lacked creativity and unpredictability, at least when Chris Rolfe was injured.
- C.J. knew he wasn't putting that in his own net. He's our Chuck Norris, if you play that game.
- I don't know if I've actually said this here before, but Blanco runs like he's carrying something between his butt cheeks. Which is neither here nor there, just the best way I can describe it.
- Running hard for the ball is another story, but his magic runs out and he loses it to Clyde Simms.
- Nice give and go between Barrett and Carr, helped out by a slight deflection, but Barrett can't find the trigger and Blanco got in too close to play the rebound.
- Simms with a long shot, but I think Pickens had it all the way.
- I really wish they'd go all the way back to the defenders on that goal highlight.
- Sarah Kustok is subscribing to what I call the "Jim Gray" style of sideline reporting. Just listen to what the coaches are saying and report back on that. I'd like to see it augmented with some conversations a little further down the bench -- not with the head coach, but hit up the assistants -- but the lack of breaks might prohibit that.
- Barrett continues to work hard up top, but can't get that final ball in. This time (70th minute), it's not for lack of trying, really.
- Rolfe with a takedown of Josh Gros on a throw-in, which could have been worse than a yellow, really, if Alex Prus saw it as more than just interference. But he didn't.
- Soumare for Carr in the 72nd minute. If Dave Sarachan had done this with a one-goal lead, he would have gotten crucified by the "hardcore fans."
- I can hear the DC fans whining about the play in the box in the 73rd minute already, but Emilio was already at full stretch and missing the ball before any contact from Gutierrez. No complaints from Emilio, though, and Chris Doran gets it exactly right in his assessment.
- Josh Gros gets up over Diego Gutierrez to get a head on a cross, but Pickens is there. I don't think you can really defend that much differently, except maybe to try to step on the cross a little more aggressively.
- Stephen de Roux is looking dangerous up D.C.'s left flank.
- And now more hard work from Chad Barrett, but Blanco's chip is too high. No, not the one on his shoulder.
- I don't get warm fuzzy feelings about the communication between Conde and Pickens. That's balanced by the fact that Brown, Robinson and Pickens seem to be working really well together.
- And suddenly we're picking DC apart down the left side. Blanco's pissed that he can't pick out a run and bangs it off the defender for a corner.
- Barrett is playing a strong, physical match, but he still can't force his way through four defenders, sorry.
- Defensive sequence in the 80th minute, and I have no idea what Soumare is doing. He seems to be maybe waiting for the DC attacker to beat his man off the dribble so he can help, but in doing so, he's leaving a guy open at the top of the box, and subsequently forcing Rolfe to track back and cover him. It ultimately didn't amount to anything, but just standing in a patch of grass with nobody around you doesn't seem like good defending to me.
- Coach Osorio is passing notes in class. That's a little odd. Franks for Barrett, after a really solid match from Chad, but one that can still be improved upon. It's that final decision that keeps letting him down. Everything else, he's doing right.
- Franks with a bad play, Pickens with bad judgment, and once again, we may leave two points on the table. More and more, I'm failing to see how this team under Juan Carlos Osorio is any different than it was -- at full strength -- under Dave Sarachan, creativity of Blanco notwithstanding. We still lack the killer instinct to step on the throat of an opponent and finish them off. Pickens made a mistake, to be sure, but it shouldn't have been left to a single mistake that's the difference between a win and a tie.
- Franks tries to atone for his role in the tying goal and gets a yellow for diving for his trouble.
- Gutierrez tries the ball off the back trick Blanco executed earlier, only I don't think he meant to.
- C.J. Brown totally stands up an onrushing de Roux, as C.J. Brown is wont to do.
- Blanco is getting too cute with the ball at his feet and can't get rid of it, twice in a row.
- Bakary Soumare needs to watch that straight-leg on-the-ground challenge.
- As hard as I've been on Conde, he's been everywhere in stoppage time. That is something we've lacked in the recent past -- someone who would step up in crunch time -- so maybe there is a silver lining and my concerns about the Conde hype will turn out to be unfounded.
- One final, hopeful flurry that ultimately falls to Soumare, who can't find the trigger, and it's another two points lost, although we're still hanging on to that final playoff spot. Unless we find some kind of killer instinct, that will mean an early exit from the playoffs.
- Huebner, Doran and Kustak did a good job, I thought. Some production hiccups -- like missing the kickoff -- but I'll give them a pass if it was a new crew, and not just the normal Comcast production/direction team working for a different network.