The Week That Was Rewind

Going into this past week the Fire were facing 2 of the top teams in the league at home. This was going to a week that was going to show if the Fire were contenders, average, or pretenders. Personally I thought that draws against RSL on Wednesday and and SKC on Saturday would have been seen as a good result. Well they tied RSL 0-0 in what was a boring game after the first 15 minutes and they were able to beat SKC 2-1 on what was a chippy game.

On Wednesday the Fire went in to the game playing an understrengthed RSL team. Missing a few starters RSL came in looking just to get a result. The first 15 minutes of the match were back and forth end to end with opportunities for both teams. Especially when Oduro came closest to scoring when he was left unmarked and got his head to a cross that he put off the cross bar. But after that the game changed for the worse. RSL had to sub out their most creative player, Javier Morales, in the 26th minute leaving them short of the creativity that would be necessary to break down the Fire's defense. So Kries ended up going into a defensive shell and  playing out the rest of the match pushing for the point. The only other highlight for the rest of the match was at halftime when CJ Brown became the 7th person to enter the Ring of Fire which was well deserved and long over due since he announced his retirement at the end of 2010.

Moving on to the more exciting match of the week. Saturday night the Fire took on SKC in a battle of the made up rivals. Seriously, KC had to invent a rivalry, pretty sad on their part. This match was much more entertaining and more chippy at times as both sides saw plenty of yellow and even one red card. The match started as both sides looked to strike early but KC found the net first after a defensive lapse or a perfectly timed through ball(which ever way you look at it) found Espinoza breaking in behind the defense who then found Convey in the middle of the box who put it in past Johnson. One thing that could have caused this goal was that Friedrich had to be subbed off right before the goal with what looked like a hamstring injury which caused Klopas to bring in Gargan and move Anibaba to the center. To me having both Anibaba and Berry in the center there was not a lot of communication in the back and with having a not as strong vocal presence in Johnson doesn't help either. After the goal in the 31st, KC dominated the possession until the 2nd half when in the 61st minute Oduro got in behind the KC defense and was brought down by Collin inside the box. The resulting PK was calmly buried into the upper corner by Grazzini. From there the game started to go the Fire's way. Less than a minute after the restart SKC's Espinoza earned himself a straight red with what looked like a hit that looked right out of a hockey game. He was going after the ball and left his feet and caught Grazzini in the head with an elbow. After that the Fire enjoyed the possession for the rest of the match and even found a winner in the 81st when Oduro seemed to get that last touch on the ball after Nyarko had put it into the center and there was a pile up as the ball was put in over the line. It was an ugly goal but it got the 3 points and that is all that mattered.

These results that the Fire were able to produce was much more than I expected. This puts them in a comfortable position in the East still with games in hand compared to the 3 teams that sit above them in the standings. But still the Fire have to prove that tey can beat the elite teams in the league to call themselves a contender. Its fine and dandy that they tied an understrengthed RSL team and that they were able to get all 3 points from a 10 man SKC team, but this is not always going to be the case when they come up against the other top teams in the league. The Fire still have plenty to work on in all aspects of their game. In my opinion they are still not a cup contender, but if they can take maximum points from these next 3 games then I will start to change my mind a little about their chances.

The Fire have another long week starting on the 20th when they travel to Portland to take on a mediocre Timbers team followed by a home date against the Brimstone Cup Rivals,FC Dallas, on the 23rd , finishing with a trip to the Firehouse East to cap which would be 3 games in 6 days. Look fr my preview of the long week later this week.