Firing Away: Chicago Fire at FC Dallas

So, the plan for today is to watch the Fire match sort of live-ish (should get caught up at halftime), watch the two Euro matches on ESPN360 afterwards, then watch the U.S.-Barbados matchup tonight, since they're most likely to spoil the Euro results.

• [PREGAME] No Prideaux, no Segares, no Gutierrez, no Conde, no Robinson. Problem? I want to see what Austin Washington can do, and Plotkin on the right could be interesting..
• [1'] Sorry, Chris, but I gotta hit you on this. C.J. Brown is not wearing the captain's armband because Diego didn't make the trip. C.J. is wearing the captain's armband because he's the captain. Unless something changed since the beginning of the season, in which case, I apologize in advance.
• [3'] Soumare with a horrid giveaway that fortunately doesn't lead to anything for Dallas.
• [5'] Plotkin is on the left, not the right as originally thought. Nice tackle from the Indiana boy, which leads to an opportunity for John Thorrington, if only he hadn't given up on the play. And no Chris Rolfe in the starting lineup. I knew someone else was missing, since we've got two defensive midfielders, but we're seeing that Hamlett thinks Thorrington is a better right-sided midfielder than the converted forward Rolfe.
• [7'] C.J. with a nice tackle on Oduro, who is going to be as much trouble with his speed as Cooper is with his size.
• [11'] Cooper wins the first head-to-head matchup with Soumare, but nobody home on the end of the cross. Mostly Dallas so far, except for that one Thorrington half-chance.
• [15'] Nice job from the rookie Washington digging the ball out of the corner, finally a touch from Blanco, but Dallas comes right back. C.J. Brown with some great containment on Cooper to defuse the situation.
• [16'] Playing as a second forward, Blanco is going to have to play more withdrawn if he wants to see some touches right now.
• [17'] GOAL DALLAS. Cooper beats Soumare again, this time outrunning him to latch on to a through ball and rifle it past Busch. This matchup could get ugly before this one if over.
• [20'] Did I mention Oduro is really, really fast? Dallas almost gets another good chance as C.J. underestimates the forward's speed.
• [23'] Barrett can't quite get his head on a quick cross from Blanco, but while it amounted to nothing, it's still more offense than we've seen in a while.
• [26'] I think moving King to the left was a largely defensive move, as Mapp wasn't dealing very well with Rocha. Soumare again not keeping up with Cooper, who tries chipping Busch to no avail. Baky is hurting out here. We either need to switch him off or double-team really quickly.
• [29'] Rolfe didn't make the trip, either? Mapp gets free on the right and wins a free kick just off the end line. Blanco flips it in, but it's over Soumare's head, with nobody trailing.
• [30'] "It would be nice to see someone coming from the backside." -- Fred Huebner
• [32'] Defensive shape looking really rough, as Rocha has acres of space to tee up a dangerous shot from distance.
• [34'] Thorrington is all over the place, trying to get something started. Soumare almost gets beat again, but fouls Cooper and doesn't get called. Back the other way, a nice switch finds Blanco, who would find Barrett if he were three inches taller. Best chance in a while for Chicago, but still not a shot on goal.
• [37'] Barrett can't get a shot through the Dallas defense, and Stephen King with a weak, outside-of-the-foot follow-up for Chicago's second shot of the match, and probably the first on goal.
• [42'] John Thorrington is my MOTM right now. He's been working his butt off. Chris and Fred talking about McBride. I've said before that I'd consider giving up Justin Mapp, but that's only if I can't convince Toronto to take Chad Barrett.
• [44'] Mapp free kick finds Barrett, but he can't get the header on target. We're getting some chances on crosses, if only we had a forward who was deadly on those kinds of plays. Like, say, Brian McBride.
• [45'] Oduro has left Austin Washington in the dust a couple of times now, forcing C.J. Brown to try to clean up after him. The Dallas forwards are definitely winning the matchups with the Fire's defense so far.
• [HALFTIME] Again, the two big themes right now are the Fire losing the Oduro vs. Washington and Cooper vs. Soumare battles, and John Thorrington trying valiantly to put this team on his back and carry them. We'll see how those develop in the second half.
• [47'] Stephen King gets whacked thirty yards from goal, yellow card to Ricchetti. Blanco can shoot from here, but he's not taking that kind of approach, instead looping it in pretty harmlessly.
• [49'] Cooper with a sweet, sweet move to flick it past Soumare and tee up a shot that Busch parries away. Moves like this make me wish the big Dallas forward was playing for the U.S. team today. For two reasons.
• [52'] Chicago overloaded the left side of the midfield getting forward, with King, Thorrington and Mapp working some triangles. The downside is that Cooper then got wide on Dallas' left wing and had a lot of room to operate.
• [54'] Soumare unable to contain Cooper again, but too many touches in the box and the Fire smother the chance. King with a nice chance on the counterattack, but doesn't get the left-footed on frame.
• [55'] DON'T SPOIL THE EURO MATCHES, YOU BASTARDS!
• [57'] Blanco goes way high with a shot on the best buildup for most of the match for the Men in Red. Nice quick switch from King to get it to Blanco, who should have done better.
• [59'] If you can't beat 'em, grab 'em. Soumare with the obvious yellow to keep Oduro from getting off to the races, and Herron for Washington means Baky will be on his own in the middle of the defense, with C.J. going wide right in the back. I don't think Thorrington is really playing as a fourth defender, it's more than he's just playing everywhere.
• [63'] Weak shot from Toja could have been a lot worse, as Cooper got past C.J. Brown way too easily up high. Plotkin with a nice ball into the box, but -- surprise! -- Andy Herron is offside.
• [65'] Mapp shows off the awesome power of his right foot with a weak dribbler in the box.
• [66'] I still think it's idiotic that they don't whistle the play offside until the attacking player touches it. Back the other way, Mapp does much better on his preferred left foot, but it's straight at Dario Sala.
• [70'] Mapp with a heck of a shot off a bad clearance off another long ball into the box, and is rewarded with a sub in rookie Patrick Nyarko. Are we learning more about the forward depth chart? Granted, I wouldn't put Frankowski in while Barrett is in the match, but Nyarko over Carr -- assuming Carr is available -- is curious.
• [72'] Soumare just misses off a Blanco free kick up the gut. I was going to say I think the Fire have a goal coming, but Chris Doran just did, so if we don't score, we can totally blame him for jinxing us.
• [75'] Who comes up with the candidates for Man Of The Match? WTF? Thorrington should be in there over Blanco, Herron or Brown. Nyarko gets a bit lucky on his ball into Barrett, eventually resulting in a spinning shot from Herron that Sala saves.
• [77'] WHAT DID I SAY ABOUT SPOILING THE EURO MATCHES?! You absolutely HAVE to recognize that some people might be taping those games to watch later. Give a fucking warning. Fred, you're on my shit list. Officially.
• [79'] The Fire dodge a bullet on the counterattack, but you have to expect that at this point with Chicago pushing forward. C.J. does a good job holding up the attack until the cavalry arrives. Then Oduro breaks and Busch makes another stop. This game ends 2-0 or 1-1.
• [82'] Another counter, another save from Busch. This one happened because nobody was moving for Soumare's entry pass. Now Soumare stuffs Oduro after a nice cross-field pass finds the speedy forward.
• [84'] Busch comes up HUGE on a header from Oduro and the followup at the far post. I'm reasonable sure we're going to lose this match at this point, but I hope I'm wrong.
• [85'] Should have been a PK for Dallas right there. Nyarko took out McCarty, and I don't know what it means that Huebner sounds like he's saying "Bacardi" all the time.
• [87'] Nice setup for Stephen King, but the shot is blocked by the Dallas defense, and the subsequent corner goes nowhere.
• [90'+] Frankowski with a weak header toward the far post, and somebody had to be making that run, probably Patrick Nyarko.
• [FULL TIME] Dallas wins 1-0. That forward pairing for Dallas proved to be too much, although the other piece might have been Mapp not containing Rocha early, but I'm just guessing at that based on the assist and then the switch that found Mapp off of that assignment. Offensively, this underscores just how valuable the ability of Segares and Prideaux to get forward can be. Blanco didn't get nearly enough touches, which isn't entirely surprising if he's lining up as one of two forwards as opposed to one of three.
• [FULL TIME] And I managed to avert my eyes on at least the Portugal-Switzerland match. Unfortunately, that one doesn't mean much. If nothing else, I don't know if the score they showed for Turkey-Czech Republic was a final, so I can at least watch the end.