Super important game tonight. A win and the Fire temporarily leapfrog New England (and, possibly, Montreal, Orlando and Toronto) of course New England has 2 games in hand). A loss and the season is basically (although not completely) over.
2 1/2 hour before kick off. Is this the latest a game thread has been posted? I'm going with something stupid will happen, hopefully it's in our favor.
I believe I did one just minutes prior to kick off, but this is pretty close. I was waiting to see if anyone else would do it.
Bornstein starting Kronholm Bornstein Calvo Kappelhoff Bronico Azira McCarty Frankowski Gaitan Sapong Nikolic Bench Sanchez Marcelo Lillard Gutjahr Mihailovic Herbers Campos
I do not know a single player in New England's starting 11, other than Bunbury. Former Fire "legend" Jalil Anibaba on the bench. New England are 6-6-1 (WTL) for 1.84 ppg since Bruce Arena took over. BTW, New England dumped Brad Friedel immediately after the 5-0 thumping by the Fire on May 8. Imagine if the Fire had the foresight to dump their underachieving, negative, head coach who has a strange accent and replace him with an experienced, positive MLS head coach. The Fire should have dumped their underachieving, negative, head coach who has a strange accent, Paunovic, immediately after the debacle in San Jose in May, the start of a 15 game streak with 1 win. The Fire have way, way more talent than New England, but New England under Arena has excelled.
Well, tonight Bronico is starting at right back, with Bastian out and Kappelhoff back in the center. Edit: or as Danhole Kelly just said; "Bronico back to his old right back position." Yes, Danhole, 'creative' Brandt Bronico played a handful of games at right back, so it must be his "old" position.
It was nice that Krafft removed the football lines from Thursday nights game, at least they didn't have to Pats logos to remove (didn't paint them for the Pats game).
Now he is rambling about babies and how important "family" is for the Fire (two days after the anniversary of the "Editorial"). The "club" supports players with major life events, like the birth of babies. Awesome analysis there, Dan. You really put the "anal" in analysis. Not because you are incredibly attentive to detail to the point that it becomes an obsession. Anal as in that you're just a smelly asshole, Dan.
Well than how does the NEW guy Azira get the start over Milhailovic. Oh wait I bet he practiced CHEERFULLY this week. For the first half of the season Milhailovic was Pauno's favorite player, then somehow became less popular than Katai and Niko (that's saying a lot, considering how much he dislikes Niko and Katai).
Terrible defending, or lack of defending, by the Fire on that first goal. Of course, Danhole saying it is "reminiscent of Nikolic's first goal last week." No, Danhole, Nikolic's goal was scored BY the Fire, not AGAINST the Fire. Nothing reminiscent about it at all. God, he is just an awful, awful announcer.
Kronholm actually makes a good decision to come out early to clear the ball before Fagundez could get to it.
Second half kick-off. Azira should be replaced by Milhailovic immediately. Without Katai out there, we need another player who has the ability to pass the ball and take some of the focus off of Gaitan.
I cannot listen to Dan Kelly's vomiting out his tripe anymore. Sound going off now. Tomorrow night, we are going to see a very old (with a 65 year old Greg Ginn on guitar), reformed version of Black Flag, so I guess I will listen to them for a while. Never one of my favorite punk bands, but still should be fun.
If anybody cares, Mihailovic is in...for Nikolic. Not for the still recovering Sapong. Not for the ineffective Azira. No, he is in for our most dangerous offensive player. Right off the bat, there is a loose ball in the box that Frankowski cannot handle, but would have looked pretty good for Nikolic.
Goal by Bou. 2-1 Revolution. [of course, he takes his shirt off and gets a stupid yellow card] Well, goodbye to the 2019 Chicago Fire season.