Chicago Fire fell 3-1 over Crew

BALKAN PRESS | 08/13/2017 | MLS League, SOCCER | No Comments

COLUMBUS, OH. on Saturday night at MAPFRE Stadium, faced Chicago Fire FC with big victory. Despite an early goal from forward Michael de Leeuw, the Chicago Fire (12-6-5, 41 pts.) fell 3-1 to Eastern Conference rivals Columbus Crew SC (11-12-2, 35 points).

The Dutchman gave the Fire the lead 13 minutes into the game. Midfielder Dax McCarty found himself with space outside the Columbus attacking third from a restart, and swerved a ball into a crowded 18-yard-box for a charging to de Leeuw to snap home with his head. The goal was de Leeuw’s second in as many games and his third of 2017 overall.

In the 18th minute, Columbus found an equalizer on a fortunate bounce inside Matt Lampson’s box. Midfielder Artur sent in a shot from distance that deflected off defender Johan Kappelhof and onto the foot of forward Kekuta Manneh, who put an unimpeded shot past Lampson to make the score 1-1.

Columbus would break the deadlock in the 73rd minute. After a turnover near the center circle, midfielder Wil Trapp played a long ball down the left touchline for Waylon Francis in transition, and the defenders cross into the box was finished by an on-running Justin Meram.

The Columbus third came via an Ola Kamara penalty kick in the 88th minute. Tamara picked up the ball on a turnover and made a solo run into the Fire 18, where Lampson came off his line in low and parried the ball away. Referee Armando Villarreal pointed to the spot, where Kamara scored the final goal of the night to make the score 3-1.

The Fire will now shift focus to a mid-week trip to Montreal to take on the Impact on Wednesday, Aug. 16. Kickoff from Stade Saputo is set for 6:30 p.m. CT on CSN Chicago and Univision Chicago 1200AM.

Quotes:
Veljko Paunovic, Chicago Fire Head Coach

On his team’s performance
“Congrats to Columbus on a win, first of all, and good luck further in the season. I think today we actually killed ourselves. I think we conceded things and mistakes that we had and the adjustments we did weren’t good enough. I just think in the second half especially, at some point, even controlling the game we dropped the attitude and the concentration; we lost a couple of very dangerous balls and teams like Columbus will always punish you for that. I think without taking credit away from Columbus, I think we lost the game definitely today in our approach in the second half and we all have to get better. It’s individual mistakes that kills us. If we want to be a successful team and a team that dominates, which we want, we have to do better in these kinds of games, especially on the road.”

On Crew SC’s counterattack

“I think they did very well, but I think we conceded very innocent mistakes, we gave up a couple of balls that you just cannot do that; against a team like Columbus, you cannot do that. You cannot do that against Toronto FC, you cannot do that against D.C. United you cannot do that against any team in this league, so we just have to understand. This is the game for men, for the guys who compete, who will fight for every ball and obviously don’t commit mistakes and that’s something we have to improve. Our team has to mature if we want to be the playoff team and fight for the Supporters’ Shield.”

On the Supporters’ Shield race

“We are just focusing on us. We obviously follow other teams, Toronto is doing well and we have Toronto at home very soon. We have to get better, we have to come back where we were at some point this season where you couldn’t find the difference playing at home or on the road, so that’s what we have to achieve again.”

Chicago Fire Forward Michael de Leeuw
On his goal tonight..
“I don’t remember-but I think it was a rebound. The ball came back to Dax and I watched the line and I saw that I wasn’t offside and I think a great ball from Dax and I had a perfect in, so great goal.”

On positive takeaways from tonight’s match

“So right after the match what’s positive? That’s difficult because now only what’s in my head is like the way we played. I think we played well in certain parts of the game but most of all we were very sloppy. I think we had twenty unforced errors and at the end, the goals came from that, also the third goal was a mistake for me. The positive-I think we played well but the sloppy mistakes were too much.”

On what to improve on before the next match

“Well the sloppiness-we have to play better and when we play possession. Just hold the ball and not make stupid mistakes because Columbus profited big because of that. I think that needs to be better but yeah it’s no shame Columbus, is a good team. Great for them, great match for them, good team. We have to keep going on and Wednesday we play against Montreal and we just have to keep doing the same without the sloppy passes.”

MLS Regular Season
Chicago Fire (12-6-5, 41 pts.) 1:3 Columbus Crew SC (11-12-2, 35 points)
Aug. 12, 2017 – MAPFRE Stadium
Attendance: 18,690

Scoring Summary:
CHI – Michael de Leeuw (Dax McCarty) 13′
CLB – Kekuta Manneh 18′
CLB – Justin Meram (Waylon Francis, Wil Trapp) 73′
CLB – Ola Kamara (PK) 88′

Misconduct Summary:
CHI – Joao Meira (caution) 26′
CLB – Justin Meram (simulation) 59′
CLB – Jonathan Menshah (unsporting behavior) 67′
CHI – Matt Polster (caution) 73′
CHI – Matt Lampson (caution) 89′

Chicago Fire: Matt Lampson; Matt Polster, Johan Kappelhof, Joao Meira, Patrick Doody; Bastian Schweinsteiger, Dax McCarty ©; Michael de Leeuw, Luis Solignac (Arturo Alvarez 60′), David Accam (Jonathan Campbell 90′); Nemanja Nikolic.

Subs not used: Stefan Cleveland, Drew Conner, Juninho, Djordje Mihailovic, Christian Dean.

Shots: 11; 3; 1; 5; 3; 0

Columbus Crew SC: Zack Steffen, Jonathan Mensa, Josh Williams, Lalas Abubakar, Harrison Afful (Hector Jimenez 46′), Artur, Will Trapp, Waylon Francis, Kekuta Manneh (Cristian Martinez 65′), Justin Meram (Adam Jahn 90′), Ola Kamara.

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