Fire on first Eastern Conference road trip
The Fire are set for their first Eastern Conference road trip as they head to Harrison, N.J. on Saturday with the New York Red Bulls .
In the 2018 edition of the Men In Red are singularly focused on beginning a climb up the table, there’s also likely still a fresh memory for many of Saturday’s competitors of the way in which the Red Bulls brought an abrupt end to the Fire’s 2017 MLS Cup Playoff hopes. New York claimed a 4-0 victory at Toyota Park in the knockout round last October, leaving the Fire with a bitter pill to swallow after a season in which they’d finished third in the MLS Supporters’ Shield standings.
Taking a longer view of the series history, the Red Bulls are unbeaten (4-0-2) in their last six regular-season meetings with the Fire, a run that comes on the heels of a three-match Chicago winning streak spanning the 2014 and 2015 seasons. The Fire are 2-6-1 in New Jersey since the 2010 opening of Red Bull Arena, with their last road win in the series coming in dramatic 5-4 fashion on May 10 2014.
Former Fire standout Jesse Marsch and his current Red Bulls side spent much of the season’s first six weeks balancing their MLS regular season efforts with their pursuit of Concacaf Champions League glory, eventually falling out of the continental championship with a 1-0 aggregate loss in the semis to Chivas de Guadalajara. New York showed no ill effects from their elimination, returning to their MLS campaign with a 3-1 home win over Montreal Saturday thanks to a goal-and-an-assist from Bradley Wright-Phillips and a first league goal for recently acquired Argentine midfielder Alejandro Romero “Kaku” Gamarra.
Speaking of Wright-Phillips, the veteran goal-scoring extraordinaire remains in top form this season with four goals and two assists to his credit and enters the weekend looking to add to his 90 career MLS goals, eight of which have come against Chicago. Wright-Phillips and ironman goalkeeper Luis Robles constitute the old-guard on a somewhat retooled Red Bulls side, one punctuated by young talents like Tyler Adams, Alex Muyl and Derrick Etienne Jr. Together, they’ve helped the Red Bulls collect 13 goals this year, the fourth-most in MLS and the best mark for any team to have played five or fewer matches.
As the Fire game-plan to manage the Red Bulls’ dynamic attack and high defensive press, Veljko Paunovic will be looking to build on last Saturday’s effort that saw the Fire maintain 60 percent possession and limit the LA Galaxy to Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s first-half stoppage-time strike. Jonathan Campbell and Grant Lillard both fared well in their first extended action of 2018 and, if called on again Saturday, will be faced with an equally difficult but altogether different challenge against the Red Bulls. As he was last weekend, expect Dax McCarty to be a force in protecting his back line and managing the Red Bulls pressure in his second match back at Red Bull Arena as a visiting player.
Bastian Schweinsteiger delivered another all-encompassing performance Saturday at Toyota Park, relentlessly battling Ibrahimovic, the Galaxy and the suboptimal weather conditions from his spot on the back line while also facilitating his side’s possession across all three lines. Schweinsteiger’s fluidity of responsibilities between and within matches has kept opponents off-balance and lifted the level of those around him.
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