Wonderful atmosphere at the game today- a sell out that really was a sell out. I didn't hear booing of Bbeckham, but sure did hear booing for Donovan. Thorrington and Carr really sparked things up when they came in, fresh legs, sure, but I would rather see them start than Barrett and Wanchope Conde is great.
I think moving Rolfe to midfield has been a key to our turnaround. Dave used to take turning over the ball in midfield as a given. So put on an entire lineup of dmids to break up the counter attack. We set up very deep, and defended most of the game. Osario is playing with 4 true attacking players on the field, because he knows that Blanco and Rolfe can hold the ball with fewer turnovers in the midfield. If we had another player who was sure on the ball and could combine with teammates to bring on in the midfield, then maybe you move Rolfe up. But to bring on Diego Gutierrez who will just play pinball with the other team isn't going to get the fire any scoring chances. We might not be finishing all our chances, but we are controlling games, and playing in their end. So, even if we aren't finishing, we're actually playing much better defense by controlling the flow of the game. You can't discount that as a big factor.
Post-game quotes are up http://chicago.fire.mlsnet.com/news...ent_id=125120&vkey=pr_chf&fext=.jsp&team=t100 Particularly great was this Thanks to Coach Osorio, Guppy, the new blood and the old blood for giving us Fire fans a new season. I look back on the months of June and early July, and it was so brutal, for an 8 game period we were the worst team in MLS, no exaggeration. Look how far we've come, and how far we may still possibly go. It's a good time to be a Fire fan. Cheers! We get to talk about Fire games for at least a couple more weeks.
Right because he's kicked so much ass with Schelotto feeding him. Never mind he's prone to at least one 6 game suspension a season and a 10 game streak where he doesn't score. Barrett had an absolute howler today. So did Wanchope, as expected, and strangely, so did Rolfe. If anything, I think both Rolfe and Barrett were so determined get the early goal that they were looking to crush every shot instead of placement. What's troubling is that every time we got round the goal, save Thorrington, we either tried to over power it, or in the case of Conde and others, got too cute with it.
Re: Fire Win From the bottom of my heart, I thank you guys for destroying the playoff hopes of the LA scum.
I'd say he's been just as important as Blanco to the turn around of this team. We were bleeding goals and couldn't control a game for more than 15 minutes and he helped stopped that. Moving him into the midfield as sort of an advanced center back has certainly provided the linking player that was missing between the defense and midfield that allows us to do something other than longball it out of the back and pray for rain
Section 8 was in rare form today. Had all of TP chanting a few times. Here's a couple of pics from 210.
awssome pictures man...thats a nice giant flag..whos face is on that flag??????????looks kool..the one with the star
Random Screed...This blogging stuff is fun but to those Fire fans actually living in the Chicago area we need to bug WSCR 670 sports talk to cover the Fire and to stop the soccer radio silence. I'm tired of it! This team and this sport deserves more time on the sports talk airwaves! Anybody care to comment?
Man, it feels so good to have something to feel good about! Our defense dominated, our midfield dominated and our "forwards"... Uhm... Well hey, we won! And we get DCU in the first round and they have to be crapping a brick right now. Conde is the real deal. He's not only a good defender but he adds a whole new dimension to our attack that wasn't there before. Rolfe had his best game yet at midfield. Even his defense has improved. Armas also had a helluva game. He was very disruptive to their midfield and was one reason why they didn't get many real scoring chances. Blanco needs to play more and dive/whine less. Also, the cutsie backheels will work against a guy once and are best used sparingly. Still, he sliced the Gals apart with his passing. Kudos to Thorrington for being our only attacking player who could find the LA net without a GPS. But Pickens was still MOTM because he would have been good enough to send us into the play-offs even if Thorrington hadn't scored in the last seconds. Kudos also to Section 8. Loud and strong for 90 minutes and the "First Fan" banner is [Peter Griffin]freakin' sweet[/PG]! You're right that Osorio has chosen to live or die by playing no forwards. It came close to costing us dearly today despite the utter dominance of our defense and midfield. The problem with saying "Rolfie (did he rally say 'Rolfie'? ) has vision and executes the pass is that this does no good and is completely wasted when we have NOBODY UP FRONT WORTH PASSING TO. -------------- A few shout-outs: To Garber - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Screw you! We beat your golden boys AND your ref. Suck it. To Prus - I know the league told you to keep the Gals in the game any way your could and you'll say you were "just doing my job". That excuse didn't work for Eichmann either. ******** off. To all the people in the stands with Galaxy Beckham shirts on who didn't fly in from LA - Thanks for spending the money to cheer on Mr. Posh Spice. Nice to see you at TP. Now go sodomize yourselves with a 2X4. Ah, it feels good to get that out of my system. Now to beat DCU on Thursday.
Why was there an army of men in black suits under the shield next to the Galaxy bench? Who were those guys?
Somewhere - Dave Sarachan was watching and wondering: "shouldn't Dasan Robinson be playing right wing? Interesting tactic."
Too bad we didn't have Beckham or Blanco cam for that. Beckham must have shit his pants when he saw that ********ing beautiful chip! "OMG, I'm a has been, now!" he said. "How does it feel?" Victoria asked him. Garber, USSF, AEG, Simon Cowell (His manager), Donovan, Jones, and Victoria probablt defecated as well.
Comcast Sports had a nice 5 minute segment on the game today. Interviews with Rolfe, Pickens and Thorr.
Agreed. The Blackhawks have sucked for years and nobody goes to the games but they still talk about them on the radio. Their excuse is that theres no interest. Thy media give no love to the Fire except on CLTV and Spanish outlets. That one guy on CLTV used to give the Fire great coverage and seemed interested....until they caught him trying to pick up kiddies on the internet.
If we had a real striker we could really contend. Barret and Wanchope have just sucked at finishing all year long. There must be a Columbian striker Osorio can sign when we dump Wanchope and if Segares gets his papers maybe another. Blanco, Barrett, Rolfe, Conde, Wanchope, all missed sitters or 1 on 1s with the goalie. Only Thorringon buried his chance. Thorrington also impressed against Cruz Azul. Wouldnt mind trying him at forward couldnt be anyworse than what we have. If Thorringon can stay healthy and if Mapp and Guerrero can come back we might just do some damage.
Twaddle and Silverfish stated that soccer will never catch on in this town. Twaddle stated the Fire will always take a backseat to even the Blackhaws. Apparrently he hasnt checked the attendence figures.
blanco is bad for the game and exudes bad karma....look for karma to exude back when he is injured and his season is over....