VS. DATE / TIME: Saturday, August 17, 2019 8:00 PM EDT MATCH PREVIEW: MLS Match Preview VENUE: SeatGeek Stadium Bridgeview, Illinois Tickets GAMETIME FORECAST: Mostly clear Temp: 80° Feels Like: 79° TELEVISION BROADCAST: PHL17 (Local) COMCAST: Channel 807 HD, 7 SD Verizon FiOS: Channel 517 HD, 17 SD CURRENT MLS STANDINGS MLS INJURY REPORT MLS DISCIPLINE REPORT LAST MEETING: Saturday, July 20, 2019 Talen Energy Stadium / Chester, Pennsylvania Philadelphia Union 2 - 0 Chicago Fire MLS Matchcenter
Interesting what Warshaw wrote about Chicago after their last game: Quote This game was the perfect encapsulation of the Fire’s season. Gorgeous soccer followed by a slow, steady descent into the nearly inevitable feeling that they would drop points, followed by a mad rush to get a late goal. This time, they actually got that late goal. It’s also probably not a coincidence that they’ve played a 4-2-3-1 formation three games in a row and taken seven points. The Fire still have a chance to get over the playoff line. To take it a step further, it might even be in their hands. They have two six-point games left against New England and Toronto, plus Columbus, Cincinnati, and Orlando. Chicago have the soccer in them to take 15 from the last eight games. They just can’t trip over themselves as they get into the sprint. UNQUOTE Should be a very interesting game!
Chicago has played better as of late, but I think the Union will go for a kill on this one, knowing how hard the final matches are going to be. There is now way the Fire can keep us from getting 2 or 3 if we're firing away at will.
They would have scored more goals on us last time if CJ hadn't missed at least two good opportunities. Let's hope he's in the lineup again.
So Atlanta foolishly played their starters in the Campeones Cup. Hoping that helps the Union extend their lead in the standings this weekend.
Chicago played at 10:00 PM CDT last night and flies from Portland to Chicago today. They will have only one full day to prepare for this game. Katai got the red card in the 30th minute, so the remaining players played down a man for 60+ minutes. Note that Schweinsteiger, McCarty, Gaitan and Herbers did not travel to Portland, Calvo and Bornstein played 45 minutes each, Mihailovic played only 61 minutes and Sapong only played 29 minutes. Chicago took the "we'll try our best in Portland but want to be ready for Philadelphia on Saturday" approach. I assume that this is what the Union are going to do for the game at San Jose on 9/25.
I would be interested in an analysis of how teams do on short rest vs long rest in MLS. It seems that whenever we play a team that has had a short rest, we lose (I am basing this broad statement on the single game against Orlando where they had two players out on Red Cards). It would be interesting to see the impact of rest over many games.
From a fantasy soccer perspective, the largest factors that I use are (1) home/away; (2) opponent; (3) amount of rest. I'm sure that this analysis has been done. I'll see if I can find something.
Union just beat Houston who was on 3 days rest, got crushed by Montreal on 3 days rest (Canadian Championship vs York9), beat Chicago who was on 3 days rest since the Orlando matches. I saw a stat that 5 of the next 6 Union matches are against teams on short rest. Not sure if it is true, but it should be a good test for the question.
Houston and Chicago were home games. Montreal was an away game. IMO the home vs road factor is greater than the days of rest between games factor. MLS skews heavily in favor of the home team. If you look at the road records of MLS teams, only LAFC has a record above .500 on the road this season.
That home field advantage is so important in soccer is taken for granted, but I found this article about it from the Freakonomics blog. It's old (from 2011), but found that, of the NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB, and MLS, MLS has the highest home winning percentage. League Home Games Won MLB 53.9% NHL 55.7% NFL 57.3% NBA 60.5% MLS 69.1% Their conclusion is unconscious referee bias accounts for the existence of home field advantage at all, and since referees in soccer have more potential impact over a game than in other sports, the effect is bigger. Moreover, they found that stadia with track rings around the field had smaller effects than ones without.
No Wooten in the starting line up, but Monterio is in it. In it to win it and we’re lookin’ to bring home all 3️⃣ tonight 😤RT🔁 to send the squad good luck! 💪📝👉 https://t.co/QVNzMohrv8#DOOP | #CHIvPHI pic.twitter.com/CmONohJL8K— Philadelphia Union (@PhilaUnion) August 17, 2019
2-0 Fire, Nikolic with his second from the spot. Colin pulls down Sapong on the corner.........gee, CJ NEVER got that call when he played for Philly.......
Gaitan sees Red.......that was sorta harsh, but thems the breaks. Not like the Union will take advantage in the second half