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Wizards down Fire, 3-2, in pre-season action

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The Chicago Fire looked sharp in the first half of its pre-season scrimmage vs. the Kansas City Wizards, with Patrick Nyarko scoring twice to give the Fire a 2-0 lead. The lead wouldn't last in the second half though, as the Wizards' pounced on a Fire lineup mainly consisting of reserves, scoring three unanswered goals to post a 3-2 vitory in pre-season action in Bradenton, Florida.

Aaron Hohlbein started the second half comeback with a 49th minute header off a Kevin Souter cross before Davy Arnaud converted a penalty kick drawn by Graham Zusi to tie the score at 2-2 in the 53rd minute.

Zusi helped set up the winner as well, providing the corner kick for Wizards defender Rashaun McKenzie to head home to make the final score 3-2.

Nyarko opened the scoring in the first half by finishing off a pass from Roland Paul Bebey Kingue in the 38th minute. Just two minutes later, Nyarko made it 2-0 with an impressive individual effort that saw him beat a pair of defenders before scoring from 18-yards out.

Both teams were missing several players who were with their respective national teams.

Here were the starting lineups:

FIRE

—————-McBride———–Nyarko—————–

————————–Husidic—————————

Mapp————————————————-Pappa

————————-Pause—————————–

Segares—–Soumare——–Robinson——–Prideaux

————————-Noble——————————

WIZARDS

—————–Wolff——–Thompson—————-

————————Arnaud—————————–

Lopez———————————————–Beres

————————-Souter—————————-

Harrington——Conrad—–Hohlbein——-Leathers

————————Hartman————————

For those of you wondering, the KC right winger is Hungarian trialist Ferenc Beres.

Any early thoughts? Once again, it's just the second pre-season match for both teams, but seeing Nyarko and Zusi have impacts early on has to be seen as promising for both teams.

Comments

  1. “v=the fire scrimmage were without a number of starters:

    Busch, Thor, Rolfe- USMN camp

    Blanco- Sponsors deal in chicago

    Conde- Visa trouble

    5 players who regularly see Starting XI…. and we still managed a 2-0 first half before bringing in a full squad of reserves/trialists/rookies just to see them let in 3 unanswered goals X-/”

    same could be said for the Wizards with 2 players currently with national teams(Jewsbury and Espinoza), Gomez not playing etc.. and players just drafted taking the field

    Reply
  2. It was obvious for most of last season that Nyarko deserved to be starting every game, but Hammy gave him very little time. Typical.

    He will probably sit him and Pappa this year again. Insanity!

    Reply
  3. KC are deep but I’m still not convinced they have enough quality up top to win it all. Chicago is about as good as an MLS team can be built. IMO their only possible weak link is Prideaux – and he’s not half bad. I’d like to see Robinson given more of a chance on the right now that he’s healthy.

    Reply
  4. Ok, let’s be clear, the Wizards did not beat the eastern conference runners up. Chicago’s first team only played the first half and absolutely manhandled KC, in all parts of the field. Jimmy Conrad looked solid out there and so did the young Nyarko. The Soumare kid stood out the most, he was very composed, he made the game look easy. Josh Wolfe and Lopez were rather disappointing.

    Reply
  5. the fire scrimmage were without a number of starters:

    Busch, Thor, Rolfe- USMN camp
    Blanco- Sponsors deal in chicago
    Conde- Visa trouble

    5 players who regularly see Starting XI…. and we still managed a 2-0 first half before bringing in a full squad of reserves/trialists/rookies just to see them let in 3 unanswered goals X-/

    i like the Fire’s Depth personally and hope they continue to do well…. again though,this is merely a preseason game and means very little…. but i like seeing the MLS become more competitive each year…

    Reply
  6. “Wizard fans should start booking theie MLS cup tickets! (sarcasm)”

    Honestly they have one of the top rosters in the MLS, the were one of the best teams once they decided on their line-up. They have good players that arent quite good enough to get called up for the big nats games or go to Europe but are nearly at that level. They have quite a bit of players who have capped for their national team (Davy Arnaud, Jimmy Conrad, Roger Espinoza, Herculez Gomez and Claudio Lopez) and have many others that were members of their youth national teams.

    Reply
  7. The Wizards look like a team on the up. They beat the Eastern conference runners up and schooled a team that beat the Western conference finalists. Wizard fans should start booking theie MLS cup tickets! (sarcasm)

    Reply
  8. Helllll yea Nyarko!!! please don’t get hurt again this year… or at least wait til Sept or Oct. He’s got 15 goals in him this year!

    Reply
  9. I used to watch Nyarko at Virginia Tech, and let me say this kid is something else. Tech wouldn’t have made it into the Final Four two years ago without him. The entire offence revolved around hitting the long ball up to him, and letting him work his magic. The Fire got a good forward in him. Hope he does well as he is the only Hokie playing in MLS right now.

    Reply

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