Firing Away: Chicago Fire at Real Salt Lake

Maybe the Fire will play better with the commentary in Spanish. At the very least, I'll probably have more comments about the game.

• [PREGAME] The way the Fire have been playing lately, the prospects on the road against RSL do not look good. Which could mean less pressure, except that there's still a sliver of hope that Chicago could make the playoffs. So there's definitely pressure. We'll see what happens.
• [3'] Ristic starts over Nyarko? I almost miss Juan Carlos Osorio and his lineup consistency.
• [7'] Johnson a little bit slow to the first ball, but gets enough, then able to push away the rebound. And Robbie Findley falls down in the box one play later. Shocker.
• [9'] Hey, I get Telefutura in HD! Awesome! Now can I please get FSC and BBC America?
• [10'] Nery Castillo offside count at 1.
• [16'] Must have been pushing in the box before the corner kick. Castillo takes it again, but it's pushed back to him, and then his cross is cleared out.
• [23'] Referee is letting them play. Lots of borderline challenges not getting called, but it's looking consistent so far.
• [24'] Wilman Conde doing what he does best -- totally misjudging a chipped ball and giving RSL a gift-wrapped scoring chance, but they can't convert. If you think you can't reach that ball, you keep running to make sure the attacker can't get to it if you miss.
• [27'] Ristic with a strong diagonal run to the middle with the ball, but loses it at the top of the eighteen. Camera finds Ljungberg, which is better than the Chicago Fire, who have had more trouble locating him.
• [30'] Wilman Conde, clearly jealous of Ristic's hair, takes out his frustrations on Real Salt Lake, earning a yellow card. Free kick is low, under the wall, and wide.
• [32'] Logan Pause should know better than to give Andy Williams room to shoot from 25+ yards out. Fortunately, the shot goes wide of Sean Johnson.
• [34'] Beckerman chops down Ljungberg trying to break out and picks up a yellow. Early permissiveness on challenges from the officials already coming home to roost?
• [38'] Nery Castillo making friends at the end line. Just a little shove to the back of Jamison Olave, who may not have realized he sorta elbowed Castillo in the throat right before that.
• [42'] Salt Lake almost pulls a fast one by getting a different ball for a throw-in than the one Gonzalo Segares was trying to kill time dawdling with out of bounds.
• [45'+] GOAL REAL SALT LAKE. Wilman Conde costs us yet another one with some supremely lazy defending. He lets Grabavoy get around him, then has to pull him down. No question on the call. It looks like there was some heated discussion over whether or not Conde was the last defender on the play, and that decision goes badly for Chicago as well, since he was already sitting on a yellow card. Conde is ejected, and Collins John picks up a yellow for being petulant. Saborio converts. RSL almost get another one, but Sean Johnson comes up with a big save just before the halftime whistle.
• [HALFTIME] Just when it seemed that the Fire might be able to keep this one close, the most overrated defender in all of MLS comes through once again in epic fashion. It's getting to the point where I'm getting weary of my own criticism of him, but he keeps finding new ways to hurt this team.
• [HALFTIME] On the other side of the ball, Bratislav Ristic has offered a bit more variety in the midfield than Patrick Nyarko, so that's looking like less suspect of a decision. Nyarko enters the match at the half for Collins John, who never seems to be in the right place for balls into the box.
• [HALFTIME] According to the Fire's Twitter feed, the referee initially gave C.J. Brown the yellow for the penalty, but was corrected, giving it to Conde instead. Except that the referee clearly showed a yellow after the Conde ejection, unless you have to show it to take it away?
• [53'] With the Nyarko sub, Ristic drops to right back, with Nyarko on the wing, and Castillo as lone forward. My not McBride? Not on the game-day roster. That captain's armband is a curse lately.
• [60'] I have a hunch this match is going to be excruciatingly boring from here on out. Chicago doesn't have the means to go balls-out to save their season, although Calen Carr is ready to come in and try to prove me wrong. For Ljungberg? Yeah, he's been invisible, but so has Castillo, and you're more likely to get that one moment of brilliance from Freddie, I think.
• [71'] Spanish-language announcers seem acutely aware of players' middle names. Logan Alan Pause?
• [72'] Free kick from Andy Williams curls around the Fire wall, but Johnson is right there.
• [78'] Just I was about to express surprise that the Fire have managed all of two shots this half (three overall), Patrick Nyarko strips the ball and gets a low shot just wide of Nick Rimando. Can't remember the other two shots this half, as the Fire attack seemed pretty toothless even at full strength.
• [83'] I haven't been part of the non-stop bashing of the MLS website throughout most of this season, but I'm struck by how the "fan talk" window on the match tracker page shows tweets that may or may not be about the match, but not in anything resembling chronological order. It's a little disconcerting.
• [84'] Chicago gets beat on the right side of the defense -- where Ristic is playing out of position -- and RSL moves it around the box nicely to a wide open Will Johnson, but his cross just misses two of his teammates, and the Fire dodge a bullet. To the extent that they haven't already been mortally wounded, or have at least shot themselves in the foot.
• [90'] Beckerman shoots just high, but it shouldn't have come to that after some poor passing n the box from RSL. That poor passing continues on the home team's next attacking sequence, but I don't see the Fire taking advantage.
• [90'+] As if on cue, the Fire are dispossessed as they attack the penalty area. I was hoping for a second that I jinxed us in a good way, but as we all know, washing your car to make it rain doesn't work.
• [FULL TIME] The referee mercifully ends the match. Could this be the worst Chicago Fire team ever? There were a lot less teams the one other time we didn't make the playoffs, but even then, we didn't get eliminated from the post-season until the last match of the season. I don't remember them being this frustrating to watch, either. Completely aimless, to the point where we get excited over a player who can run fast (Patrick Nyarko) or who is willing to miss shots badly from distance (Marco Pappa). I miss my Chicago Fire.