Well, the Fire dropped their first match of the season this afternoon, falling 1-0 at home to Kansas City. Jack Jewsbury ran onto a precision Claudio Lopez long ball in the fourth minute, and rounded an out of position Jon Busch before slotting home the game’s only goal. From everything I hear, the rest of the match was an intense, back and forth affair with both sides missing a few golden chances.
The match wasn’t on TV here in Ann Arbor though (and wasn’t on sopcast, TVU, or p2p online, and I couldn’t go to it because I have final exams), so aside from watching the highlights, everything that I know about it was gathered from reading match commentary off of a few forums during play.
The Fire’s best chance of the day, apparently, came late in the first half when Chad Barrett missed a sitter from close range after being set up by Cuautemoc Blanco. According to everything that I read, Blanco tormented the Wizards’ defense throughout the match, but the Fire were let down by poor finishing – especially by forwards Barrett and Tomasz Frankowski. Midfielder Justin Mapp was noted by many observers as looking dangerous throughout the match, which is good to hear considering the mediocre performance he delivered last week.
Both teams created a number of good chances, and from everything I can gather the match was basically decided by Barrett’s miss and Busch’s goalkeeping error.
Chris Rolfe and C.J. Brown both missed the match through injuries, and John Thorrington got his first start of the season for Chicago. It will be interesting to see whether or not Barrett and Frankowski start next week in light of their reportedly poor performances.
Andy Herron saw his first significant playing time of the season, coming on as a 63rd minute sub in place of Frankowski, so perhaps he is on his way towards earning more opportunities in the side. I also think that head coach Denis Hamlett needs to consider giving Rolfe a shot up front once he returns to full health. I don’t think that anyone would even question the assertion that Rolfe is the team’s best forward – I would say he is by far. With Stephen King and Thorrington having filled in at least adequately on the right wing over the last two weeks, I really question whether or not it’s worth pulling Rolfe away from the opponent’s goal to fill that spot in the lineup. In my opinion, doing so is wasting the talents of one of the top forwards in MLS. And from what it sounds like Barrett and Frankowski didn’t exactly tear it up today in his place.
Anyway, I will probably have more on the team during the week, but likely it will be less than sometimes given that I didn’t get to watch today’s game.
Scoring Summary:
KC -- Jack Jewsbury 2 (Claudio Lopez 1, Michael Harrington 2) 4
Misconduct Summary:
CHI -- Brandon Prideaux (caution; Reckless Foul) 46
KC -- Michael Harrington (caution; Dissent) 57
KC -- Ivan Trujillo (caution; Pushing, Holding) 76
Referee: Jair Marrufo
Referee's Assistants: Nate Clement; Eric Boria
4th official: Hilario Grajeda
time of game:
attendance:
weather: Sunny -and- 69 degrees
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