Well...my pre season tad of excitement is completely gone now. Now this has just become a season of..damn..I am a Fire fan..guess I better watch them. Meh.
i went for a walk around the block and it was 0-0. when i got back it was 3-0. it wasn't that long a walk.
Transcribing a twitter thread I just finished up: After every Bears game, there's about 5 different sports talk shows in the Chicago area where some analyst or former player can absolutely go into the team for its performance. Unfortunately, the Fire doesn't have that. So this thread from a psuedo-analyst will have to do. This team has absolutely no vibes right now. There is no attacking intent, no threat to the other team. Minny's defense was absolutely falling over itself in the first half and the Fire did NOTHING about that. When the ball entered the final third, they failed to find the right man, to find the pass at the right time, they failed to create anything. There was a whole lot of complaining to the ref and not enough actually playing soccer. None of these players want to score a goal. They don't. You can tell me they do, they can tell me they do, but the fact is that they're not scoring. They're not creating chances. They're not moving where they should be, they're not passing where they should pass. Kacper has shown zero intent to be a striker. He's made a great midfielder. Because all he does is come back to the midfield. He spends more time as a holding midfielder than he does in the opposing half. I appreciate the idea of "total football" and being able to play anywhere, but unless someone else is up top as a striker, STAY THE HELL UP THERE! We do not have a striker on this team. Or at least not one that can shoot the ball and keep shooting. On the defensive side, Czichos is coming off of 120 minutes in a game he shouldn't have even been in the stadium for. Omsberg, despite a big mistake today, has been excellent all season. Gaga? Gaga hasn't had to do much and it showed today. Gaga has been incredibly lucky to have a defense in front of him that does their job, but he's been on the fortunate end of too many lucky bounces and offside calls. He was exposed today. He's still 17 years old. He's not the messiah, I'm sorry. Gaga is a great goalkeeper for his age and I'm sure that he will develop into a world class talent, but right now you all are treating him like he's more than what he actually is. And now that he's being tested, you're seeing who he is, which is an average MLS keeper. Why do we have to rely on wingbacks at winger? Why do we not have actual wingers to send out there to do a job? This isn't a problem that's just solved by Torres, it's a problem created by the GM not getting enough players. Everyone was forgiving Heitz early in the season, but now we're seeing what we've actually gotten. Shaqiri is a great signing, Czichos is wonderful business. And then... Nothing. We got nothing. And it shows in our attack. Kacper was supposed to be more than this, so I'll give them that; but outside of that they still should've gotten another signing in the attack. Instead, they stocked up on young defenders that are proving every week how untrustworthy they are. Overall, there's just something wrong with the team's mentality. No one wants to do anything. They don't wanna move, they don't wanna shoot, they don't wanna pass, and they don't even wanna dribble. It's pathetic. There are some calling out specific parts of the Fire attack, but there's problems everywhere when you look. The only people I trust are Czichos and Omsberg and today half of that was dead after the workload Tuesday. "Defense wins championships" is for teams that have proven to at least show competency in the attack. Maybe not an overwhelming force, but certainly a goal a game, especially at home. And we're seeing it more and more often that the Fire CANNOT score a goal. A SINGLE GOAL! And the saddest thing about all this is that this is the team we got for the rest of the season. Because it'd take a couple miracle cap dumps to even get the space to pick up what we need. Ezra has done what he can. He has to! This is what he's got and this is what he has to work with. Bornstein is a winger because who else is a winger? Espinoza and Gaston play because who else can? This is what happens when you run out of options. The Fire have been scamming its fans all season and it just so happens that things are finally coming into focus for everyone this week: Gaga isn't God. Heitz hasn't improved. Shaqiri isn't enough. Defense might not even make the playoffs. This isn't new, but it's still terrible.
When I saw who the ref was at the beginning of the game I said we would concede at least 3 goals and be down a man. Believe me or don't, but we've never had good history with Sylvan. This in no way excuses the dumpster fire on the field of course.
A stinker, pathetic. Late in the game I was going to say the Fire are the kings of 0-0 games, but now I can't even say that. Joe should pay fire fans to watch this offense. Horrible passing and no control of the ball. Bad red card as Navarro didn't touch the guy he leaped over the tackle. Shaqiri was rusty as a lot of his passes were off.
We do have Torres joining in a couple weeks. I'm not holding out hope that he'll solve everything, but hopefully he'll be a serious upgrade offensively. We're not scoring goals in general, but based on the season so far, this was an abnormally bad game for us in possession.
So far this season: - 5 goals scored, worst offense in the league - 5 goals given up, tied for the best defense in the league
“Kacper has shown zero intent to be a striker. He's made a great midfielder.” Lol he’s not been a great midfielder. Maybe you can say “he’s been a midfielder”.
That sucked. This is the first game this season where I didn’t really feel good about anything we did. It was just, ugh, we suck again. We’re getting our asses kicked by Minnesota. Minnesota!!
I got up to pee when it was 1-0. I came back 4 minutes later and it was 3-0. The bathrooms at the stadium are decent. My friend said he is officially a soccer fan. A couple of his friends are Minnesota season ticket holders and asked him to go to games. I suspect he will.
Well at least SOMETHING good came out of this dumpster Fire. I of course could not get the game and wasn't signing up for any more apps or subscriptions so I just watched the 4 minute low lights and am kinda glad I let it go yesterday. Not...Good! Jiggs is pretty accurate. We need attackers. Torres maybe moves the needle some but the F.O. needs to find a true #9. Can Mike Magee come back out of retirement?
I’m still just fine with Kacper. He’s mobile for a big guy, makes smart runs off the ball, gets into dangerous positions, he’s just solo. Offor hasn’t shown much promise but putting someone else up top just to pull a body away from Kacper might free up some goals. We know by now that the same lineup isn’t working.
We learned at the beginning of the pre-season that Kacper prefers a running mate up front. It's telling that Offor didn't get into a match where the Fire were chasing a goal. Offor got an earlier hook than Duràn in the Open Cup match, too. As far as I can tell, Offor works as hard as anyone, but the current coaching staff doesn't seem to rate him. They are probably correct in that view. His presence is in the way of players with more versatility and upside.
I just hope it’s not telling of Ezra. We didn’t make any game saving moves anyway so you might as well try what your main striker has been asking for. Again, Offor may not do anything but create some space for Kacper. That might be good enough.
Duràn is probably a better foil than Offor because his game is different than Offor. Of course Duràn may not play as well partnering up front than running solo.
Jiggles said that Collier worked as hard as anyone and the previous couple regimes rated him enough to get plenty of playing time. Could we swap Offor for Collier? I'm sure Jiggles would approve that swap.