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New England Revolution at Chicago Fire: Your Running Commentary

Chicago Newengland

It took five months but the rematch of the MLS Eastern Conference final between New England and the Chicago Fire is here.

The Revolution comes off an impressive 3-0 thrashing of MLS Cup champion Houston in its season opener. Chicago’s season opener wasn’t as successful. The Fire needed a last-minute goal from Cuauhtemoc Blanco to salvage a 1-1 tie against Real Salt Lake.

The Fire will look to make the first game at Toyota Park this season a memorable one by exacting some revenge and posting the first win of the season.

The match-up to watch in this one is between Shalrie Joseph and Cuauhtemoc Blanco. Jeff Larentowicz may be called on to harrass Blanco but the match will be decided by which player has the better game, Joseph or Blanco.

My prediction? I’ll go with New England, 2-1.

The match is on ESPN2 tonight at 8 p.m. If you will be watching the match and will be on your computer, feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on tonight’s match in the comments section below.

Enjoy the soccer.

Comments

  1. I also like that Scottish guy with the very thick accent who did the color for the Old Firm match on FSC last weekend. Anyone know his name? I think I just like his accent.

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  2. Eric, I would absolutely agree that Dave O’Brien has no business being anywhere near a soccer match. He is an atrocity. He is probably the worst of them all, and you KNOW that ESPN will drag him out for Euro 2008 and the World Cup.

    That being said, I still find Christian Miles horribly irritating. He is too chatty, and he is so over the top. Every play is some horrible cliche, mundane passes are “fabulous through balls”, every shot is “a rocket” or some such nonsense.

    Derek Rae is pretty decent, I think. But he’s no match for Martin Tyler, or Jon Champion (sp?). They should just do every match in the world. Wouldn’t that be nice?

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  3. Anyone watching the next game?

    I sort of need to get some thing done but A) I want to see how the Quakes look and B) I want to see just how bad the Gals are, since I missed their 0-4 drubbing…

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  4. Ok, I guess the baseball attendance logic makes sense. My brain’s really out of baseball these days.

    But I think football isn’t affected as much because there are fewer games, and no doubt it has more diehards. There really isn’t a good comparison, because the number of MLS games are closest to college basketball. If those were outdoor, I’d bet a lot of teams would suffer when it rained.

    No argument that MLS needs more fans period…

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  5. Christian Miles isn’t too bad. I mean he’s better then Adrian Healey because that bloke is terrible at announcing matches. Is everyone glad that Dave O’Brien isn’t commentating at the moment? NOT a football man.

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  6. Got it…wasn’t sure if I missed something and I didn’t recall if the announcers mentioned anything…and even if they had, considering one of their first comments was “Mapp with the ball” during a closeup of ahem…”unique”-looking Barrett, I wouldn’t know if I should trust them anyway.

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  7. Red Bull fans know how red card happy Ref. Toledo is… He has ruined many a game… and I can’t belive he is still reffing for MLS.

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  8. I think you’re fooling yourself if you think the MLS has a large enough fan base to sell out games when it is 35 degrees and raining.

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  9. Right–that’s what I mean, was it simply a “good job, game is over, go get some rest” type sub or was it due to injury?

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  10. Eric:

    There’s no doubt it’s a good crowd for the middle of the week, but it’s also the season opener.

    As far as the weather, I definitely have to disagree. Baseball is not a good comparison at all. They don’t even play in bad weather or rain so of course a fan might not go if he thinks the game might not even be played.

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  11. aristotle –

    The weather kills baseball crowds at most every park. The indoor sports aren’t a fair comparison. Football is different, because there are so few games that a good fan base will show no matter what.

    I was thrown off where the game was played due to the American style of home team listed last. I think ESPN wavers back and forth which way they do it. Pretty good crowd, MLS has trouble with midweek crowds in general.

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  12. Yeah, the NYRB attendance thing is puzzling to me…they actually have a relatively solid and entertaining team (for MLS standards). Then again, getting out to the stadium is a bitch…I think the new stadium’s location will fare a little better–it’ll be on a PATH line, right?

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  13. Barrett could have run in 1v1 on goal but decided to stop, wait for two defenders to catch up, then lethargically he cuts in and skies it over the goal.

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  14. Chicago is KILLING the Revs up and down the field. I know it’s easier to do up a man, but NE is one whipped team. I hate to see injuries to anybody in this league, I really don’t like Twellman, but the depth is just not there for teams to replace their starters.

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  15. The 2008 MLS salaries came out. NE is paying $17,700 for Nyassi.

    Besides the fact that they need to raise the cap and minimum, that kind of scouting is what keeps the Revs a top club.

    Can’t wait to run down the Galaxy line-up, I don’t think their problem is the trio of big names, but on burning $150k on the Edson Buddle and Xavier’s of the world.

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  16. Just tuned in at halftime… from the comments, am I to believe that Barrett’s actually played a competent game? And if so, did he send his idiot twin brother to play for the Olympic team?

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