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Chicago Fire at New York Red Bulls: Running Commentary

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Good afternoon everybody. Today is the day folks in Chicago and the New York/New Jersey area have been waiting for. The Chicago Fire and New York Red Bulls square off in an Eastern Conference clash that has a bit more on the line than just three points.

I know, I know, you didn’t hear anything from either side that even remotely sounded like there was bad blood here, or that this game had a little extra in it. Don’t be fooled. Both sides want this one more than most and there is going to be an intense atmosphere around this one.

Feel free to share your pre-game thoughts here. I am heading to the stadium now and will be checking in with lineups and other observations. This will turn into the running commentary thread once the game starts so stay here during the game and feel free to share your thoughts and opinions in the comments section.

What will you be looking forward to the most today? Start your pre-game discussion here.

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FINAL– Fire 5, Red Bulls 1. WOW. Chicago thorougly mauled a tentative and mistake-prone Red Bulls squad that looked nothing like the team we have seen all season. The Fire is in a tie for first place with Columbus and sure looked like the top team in MLS based on today’s performance.

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87th minute– Fire fans should be enjoying the play of Soumare and Conde together. I think that will be the pairing the rest of the season. As good as Gutierrez looked today in central midfield I think that will be his new home. Once Lider Marmol gets settled in and beats out Logan Pause, the Fire starting lineup will be as good as any in the league.

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84th minute– If anything, today’s result provides a very clear illustration of the Red Bulls many needs. They need a playmaker, a central defender and left back. The playmaker and central defender being the most pressing needs.

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79th minute– Ubiparipovic in for Reyna.

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78th minute– So what happened today? The Red Bulls came out flat and the Fire came out determined and aggressive. I also think the lineup employed by the Red Bulls was a bit suspect. Not starting Altidore was surprising, as was starting Carlos Mendes in a defensive midfield role.

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76th minute– Segares looks to have clipped Altidore in the area but no call. I suppose that makes up for the no-call on Blanco’s PK in the first half.

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73rd minute- GOAL RED BULLS. Altidore with the header. Fire 5, Red Bulls 1.

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73rd minute– 14,754 is the attendance. Not a bad crowd.

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68th minute– Soumare and Altidore exchange some pleasantries, resulting in yellows for Soumare and Angel. It wouldn’t shock me to see a fight in this one.

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64th minute– Segares with the fifth goal and this has just gotten completely out of control. Chicago has played well but several of the goals have come courtesy of terrible defensive blunders by the Red Bulls.

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62nd minute- GOAL FIRE. Fire 5, Red Bulls 0.

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60th minute- GOAL FIRE. Barrett from close range and Conway let a soft one up here.

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57th minute– Altidore and Magee for Mendes and Richards. I know Segares had done a good job on Richards but that was an interesting sub.

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53rd minute– PENALTY. The Fire draws a PK. GOAL FIRE. Blanco with the PK conversion. The PK was on Boyens for a takedown on Mapp.

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52nd minute– Altidore and Magee are about to come in. Hate to say it but those should have been the halftime subs.

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49th minute– Goldthwaite was nowhere to be found on that goal, trailing late on Blanco. Freeman lost Rolfe but when Blanco gets a clear look to deliver a pass from close range, there’s not much many defenders can do there.

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48th minute- GOAL FIRE. Chris Rolfe with a wide-open header. Blanco with the ball in to Rolfe.

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48th minute– No subs for the Red Bulls at halftime. Very interesting.

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HALFTIME– Fire 1, Red Bulls 0. The Fire came out rolling, totally outplaying the Red Bulls through the first 30 minutes. The Red Bulls are lucky to be down just one goal, but did look better in the final 15 minutes of the half. Segares did well on Richards and Gutierrez has been crucial to the Fire’s first-half domination.

So who looked shaky for the Red Bulls? Sassano, Mendes and Freeman have looked suspect at times.

How can the Red Bulls turn things around? Switching to a three-forward attack should help, with Altidore on the left against Brandon Prideaux. Magee in for Sassano, with Reyna dropping deeper could help.

The Fire don’t need to change much, though Hamlett will have to deal with Altidore if the Red Bulls go with three forwards.

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44th minute– Freeman with a nice ball to Richards for a corner, but Chicago clears it out.

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42nd minute– Diego Gutierrez has been stellar for Chicago today.

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40th minute– Danleigh Borman, yes Danleigh Borman, misses by inches on a side volley. Wow. This kid is gutsy and pretty good.

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39th minute– Parke misses a clear header. There was the Red Bulls first real chance of the first half.

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38th minute– Richards finally gets something on Segares, drawing a foul.

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31st minute– Early halftime substitution suggestions? Altidore for Mendes is the obvious one.

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30th minute– Segares has done well on Richards today, showing why he’s probably had the best season of any left back in the league so far in 2008.

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27th minute– The Red Bulls are getting dominated and I have to say this lineup, with Mendes and Sassano in central midfield, isn’t working.

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22nd minute– Kudos to Denis Hamlett for going with Wilman Conde and Bakary Soumare in central defense and Diego Gutierrez in central midfield. Soumare and Conde are much better equipped to deal with Angel and Altidore, which I’m sure is who Hamlett thought the Red Bulls would start.

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20th minute– Blanco has a penalty appeal waived off. It could have been called. He might have been punished for his rep there.

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19th minute– The Fire is playing in a faster gear than the Red Bulls so far and the Red Bulls attack has been invisible for about 15 minutes.

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15th minute– The Red Bulls are missing Dave Van Den Bergh and Jozy Altidore right now. The attack looks a bit lost and the midfield passing has been shoddy after a good few early minutes.

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13th minute– Lots of unforced turnovers for the Red Bulls here. They’re looking nervous, more nervous than they’ve looked all season.

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11th minute– Chicago is organized defensively as usual and the Red Bulls just aren’t passing well right now.

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9th minute– Freeman has NOT looked good early on here.

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7th minute- GOAL FIRE. Chad Barrett beats Hunter Freeman and runs onto a nice ball from Blanco. Fire 1, Red Bulls 0.

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5th minute– The Red Bulls are definitely trying to get Dane Richards involved early on.

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4th minute– Fire offside but Mapp nearly got in behind the Red Bulls defense. Hunter Freeman needs to be careful on that side.

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1st minute– And we’re off and the Red Bulls are in a 4-4-2 with Angel and Richards up top. Mendes is in central midfield, sitting just in front of the back four.

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PRE-GAME– No Stammler today.

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PRE-GAME– We’ve got a decent crowd for this one. Looks like some fans decided that rather than drive down the shore and spend a mint on gas they could come here.

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PRE-GAME– So what match-ups will stand out? Angel and Richards vs. Soumare and Gutierrez will be interesting because I don’t think the Fire has faced a forward tandem that dangerous (and yes, I know Richards isn’t a forward but he’s a handful).

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PRE-GAME– Here’s the Fire’s lineup:

—————–Barrett——————-

Mapp———–Blanco————-Rolfe

————Conde—-Pause————-

Segares-Gutierrez—Soumare–Prideaux

—————–Busch——————–

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PRE-GAME– Mendes will be playing as a defensive midfielder. It looks like he’ll be assigned to shadowing Blanco. That should be an interesting match-up. I really think we will see Richards up top because his speed will create problems for the Fire back-line.

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PRE-GAME– The lineup listed Sassano at forward, which would make the lineup look like this:

————-Angel———Sassano—————-

Borman————Reyna—————Richards

———————Mendes————————

Goldthwaite–Parke—-Boyens——–Freeman

——————–Conway————————-

But I think we’ll see this:

————-Angel———Richards—————-

Borman————Reyna—————Sassano

———————Mendes————————

Goldthwaite–Parke—-Boyens——–Freeman

——————–Conway————————-

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PRE-GAME- Here is the Red Bulls starting lineup:

——————–Angel———————-

Borman————Reyna—————Richards

—————Mendes—Sassano—————-

Goldthwaite–Parke—-Boyens——–Freeman

——————–Conway————————-

BENCH- Thornton, Magee, Ubiparipovic, Wolyniec, Altidore, Leitch, Megaloudis

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PRE-GAME– Greetings from Giants Stadium. It looks like we will have a decent presence of Chicago Fire fans here. I saw some clusters on my way into the stadium. The stadium is still empty since the gates haven’t opened yet (2pm) but it seems like it won’t be a completely empty stadium. I’ll predict 11K.

I’m heading to the parking lots to meet up with some folks and will check back in in about 20 minutes.

Comments

  1. Kpugs–understandable. While some of your compadres were not the same in defeat (well, while leaving the stadium), the one guy who paints his head red, wears horns and the big bull nose ring was actually applauding us (Section 8) on the way out–class act. If you know him, please pass along my thanks for that. Defeat is hard enough to take when you’re so empassioned for your club, but to be able to applaude opposing supporters in your own home directly after the match (and while many are singing/chanting fairly derrogatory things)? Pure class.

    Reply
  2. Sorry to disappoint you kpugs but us whiners have absolutely nothing to complain about.

    As for the attendance. If MLS puts another team in NY before the Red Bulls establish they can draw in their new stadium its a HUGE mistake for this league.

    PPPPPPPBBBBBBBBTTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  3. The scariest thing is Osorio thinks the lineup he put out there was ok, and he considers Reyna an attacking player. If he believes those two things than wow, secondly no Chicago isnt that great we just handed them that victory with the lineup sent out there today. What a disgrace and embarrasement, Chicago takes our players, we have to pay them for our coach and they score 5 on us at home. Its also sad that our supporters are more concerned about harrassing Blanco than us getting humiliated, they could care less about the score, that was just as embarrasing.

    Reply
  4. As a red bull fan that attends every game I must say what I have been saying all along that we need good attacking midfielders and def. not Sassano who is so SLOW it is pathetic to watch. Boyens flat out stinks. Wow Conde is good and did you see how he controlled the backline. No wonder we tried to get him so bad. In the first half we are seeing what the REAL Red Bull look like without JOZY wow scary and sad. We should have kept Francis DOe at least he played well with JPA.

    Ives what about how the Fires midfield being so MUCH better than the Red Bull. We need to clean house and start getting some new players. Conway was always and will always be a backup. He is slow and has no coordination. Okay time for next year again in NEw York. At least last year they had Doe, Dema, Mathis. This years team SUCKS!

    Reply
  5. Victor M, Memorial Day Weekend is a traditionally bad weekend for ticket sales for the Red Bulls/MetroStars. That’s why I called 14K a good crowd. Is it a good crowd in the context of all pro sports? Not really, but for what has been the standard in MLS, and with the Red Bulls/MetroStars through the years, it was a decent crowd. I also don’t think there were very many people there to see Blanco. There were Fire fans who made the trip, which was great to see, but I really didn’t see much of a Blanco draw presence in the crowd.

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  6. I am absolutely gutted from this. The only thing this team does consistently is under perform. This was a must-win game and they fell far, far short. Horrible…….

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  7. One of the main differences in the game was the play of Chicago’s DP vs. the play of NY’s DP’s (especially Reyna’s).

    Reply
  8. The saddest statement of the day:

    73rd minute- 14,754 is the attendance. Not a bad crowd.

    On a beautiful day, with Blanco in town… “not a bad crowd”. Sad!

    Reply
  9. Just back from the stadium. That was godawful. No bright spots.

    Maybe Osorio will understand that Altidore needs to be on the field.

    Sassano looks like a little kid excited to play with the big boys and with no clue what to do.

    We have mastered the 5-yard lateral pass that creates nothing.

    Hopefully a light bulb or two went on in the Bulls heads as they watch Chicago create chance after chance by sending through balls and not playing with their backs to the goal.

    How many more times will Osorio start a 4-5-1 AT HOME, do down a goal and THEN move to a 4-4-2.

    This team needs serious changes and a major attitude adjustment. Hope that Reyna, Angel, etc. step up

    Reply
  10. Just came back from the game…and hopefully this was a one off for the Red Bulls. They came out flat (as flat as Twiggy) and got flatter after that bogus PK call by Salazar. That 3rd goal was the killer. Hats off to Las Chicas…they looked tight!

    Reply
  11. I’m embarrassed to be a Red Bulls fan. I’m sure the Chicago whiners will have something to complain about, since they cry about even the best results.

    As for me, there’s nothing but pure humiliation. I would even take a civil route and congratulate the Fire fans–only I am so ashamed by my team that I’d rather dig my head in the sand. Sorry Fire fans but I’m too busy being ridiculously ashamed of my team to even congratulate you. I assume that will be more than enough for you guys.

    Reply
  12. WOW!!!!! No wonder the Red Bulls were willing to cheat, lie and steal in order to get Conde and Marmol. I would have done the same thing if I had to deal with that defense and midfield line up……..GO FIRE!!!!!!

    Reply
  13. Glad to see Conde get a start. Soumare looked good early, but seemed to get caught off guard a couple of times after the incident.

    Surprised to see NY’s backline so porous.

    Reply
  14. I think the key question for the Fire after today is “Can we play the rest of our schedule on the road?”

    Second question being “Why was Chad Barrett the one marking Jozy on that corner?” Not trying to take anything away from Jozy, the header was perfect, but you’d think we’d want at least a d-mid on one of the Red Bulls best players.

    Reply
  15. tho i’m deeply saddened by our display i must say i’m Glad we got her trash whiped from left to right especially with Reyna in the game , he once again proved on such a stage to be useless well atleast not Dp quality . he gave the ball away too many times the worse is that it was not tackled away from him but he actually gave the dam ball away. is passing is 150 grand a year quality at best , we need the CM immediately , and then again our backline is finally showing how much help it needs Jeff Parke is all we got really Goldthwaite is not a true CB and its now showing .

    Reply
  16. gotta say, I am happy that Chicago won, but I was expecting at least a little fight from RBNY. I thought this baby had 1-1 written all over it.

    If I’m a RBNY supporter I have to wonder when the hell JCO and the FO are actually going to improve a team that had problems last year, this year. It’s the same team with an even older, even more fragile Reyna and a star forward who might (probably won’t) be gone before September.

    5-1 kinda takes all the drama out of the match. I love the beating handed out though.

    @Posted by: irishapple21 | May 25, 2008 at 02:54 PM

    5-1

    Reply
  17. Mark- i do what i can do… 😀

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    i think the Redbulls downfall was when segares took Richards completely out of the game…. you kept going to him, hopeing his speed and talent could open the defense, and he had maybe 1 good cross and drew a foul… outside that, he was useless today

    Jozy’s stock slightly inc. with the goal… even down 5 he still put on the effort to sink a goal…

    i only wish Barrett would play like this every game… i couldnt care less with how many mistouches he had, or how many turnovers he had… he could play 88 min’s as long as he keeps putting away the goals and assists… Rolfe proves again why he’s so dangerous… Mapp had flashes of disappointments but overall played well.. and blanco did excellent by not complaining about every little hit and nudge.. and did very well distributing and not always trying to draw the foul…

    overall the fire did very well today…

    Reply
  18. Shameful. Chicago’s much better than NY. Metro supporters are owed an explanation of how nothing has been done to upgrade the squad– we were afraid we were this bad, but an extremely defensive and cautious approach concealed a lot of problems with the squad.

    Claudio Reyna is the biggest waste of money in MLS history. He should feel humiliated by how badly he was outplayed by Blanco.

    Reply
  19. Well… That was very bad. I turned off the TV after the third goal because it was clear that the Red Bulls weren’t going to attempt to compete today. I seriously wonder what it is that makes the players just not feel like putting out any effort for the fans. Very sad indeed.

    Reply
  20. Worst game ever! Credit due to the Fire for making professionals look very amateurish. When you get knocked down, hard, it’s all how you respond next game. And if I don’t see that, for the lack of a better word, fire next week, then we need to be very worried.

    Reply
  21. Joamiq- a very no bias approach to them… i can respect that

    usually a missed pk call (whether they were or werent) tends to make or break the games, but obviously in this game they didnt matter so much

    Conde did well today… the entire backline of the fire were solid…

    Reply

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