Match Day #7
Rewind and Match Day #8 and #9 Preview
The Fire went into Friday night
needing to take all 3 points from Chivas USA and they did just that, though
they left it late. It was a game that did not come easy for the Fire either. Yet
again the opposing team had the majority of the possession but the Fire took
finished their chances when they came to them despite a fantastic effort from
CDUSA keeper Dan Kennedy. CDUSA got on the board first when rookie Austin Berry
was judged to bring down Moreno in the box. This led to a PK that was calmly
buried by Angel. I was surprised that the Fire responded as quickly as they
did. Off of a cleared corner, Grazzini gathered the ball and chipped it back
into the box where Berry atoned for his early PK and touched the ball past
Kennedy. After the equalizer it was all Chivas when it came to possession and
chances. At this point, in my opinion, the Fire looked like they were content
just sitting back and waiting for a chance to break on the counter. But that
chance didn’t happen because Chivas like Seattle were employing almost the same
tactics and the Fire were kept away from the ball and had no solid attack. They
also employed the hack-a-Grazzini technique which anybody could see watching
the game visibly took him out of the game. This may offend people but Grazzini
needs to toughen up and keep playing until the whistle. I understand that he
does get fouled and the ref is not calling those fouls but every time he gets
touched he goes down in a heap. He actually hurts the team when he goes down
and pouts to ref that he is not getting any calls. Talking about the ref, I wouldn’t
be surprised if there was any mention this week of Valencia’s gut punch to Oduro
or Oduro’s retaliatory kick to Valencia’s leg. Well enough about that, the Fire
ended up subbing Oduro and Grazzini to bring on Robayo and Puppo. These subs
changed the outlook of the game and added a spark that was missing. That’s when
deep into stoppage the killer P’s combined to score the winning goal. Pardo
passed to Pappa who combined with Puppo along with a dummy from Robayo and the
ball ended up with Pappa who slotted it into the far bottom corner for the
winner. I’m glad they got the 3 points but why did it take them until the the
last 10 minutes of the game to have any sense of urgency about winning? The
Fire seem to be pretty content about sitting back and trying to counter attack
when they get the ball and this is not going to work all season. They are going
to have to do something in order to keep a hold of the ball and maintain a
constant attack all game long.
That brings us to the previews
for this coming week. Since the work thing is going to get in the way of
writing individual previews. So here it is in a nutshell, the Fire are playing
2 of the top teams in the league, RSL on Wednesday and SKC on Saturday(both at
home). The way that the Fire have been playing all season it will be tough for
them to actually get the maximum 6 points from the next 2 games. I would be surprised
to see them get 2 points because RSL and SKC are teams that have not had much
turnover the last 2 years and both have built strong squads. But if the Fire
can play 2 great games they stand the chance at taking all 6 points and moving
further up the standings. But the pessimist side of me thinks that they will
tie RSL on Wednesday 1-1 and lose to SKC 3-1 on Saturday. I hope I’m wrong
about that and the team proves me wrong. Look for my game reviews after the SKC
game next Saturday.
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