Going Through the Motions: Chicago Fire 0 - 0 NYCFC

hey soccer fans this is Nick reminding you to check out Sports spider if you're tired of searching multiple websites for sports news sportspyder.com has you covered they collect the latest articles videos and podcasts from around the web and organize them by your favorite teams if you want to stay as updated as possible on the Chicago Fire or any other team hit the link in the description to check out sportspyder.com [Music] hey soccer fans welcome back to the feed the fire podcast I'm your host Nick and today we are recapping the Chicago fires draw against New York City FC we're looking ahead to their midweek matchup against FC Cincinnati and we're going to cover a few of the headlines from around the American soccer and World Soccer landscape and you know share a few stories along the way and hopefully some laughs and I definitely got a couple of anecdotes from my attendance at the nycfc match before we get into all of that I want to just quickly address a housekeeping matter I want to be say thank you to Leo one of the fans out there who I'm walking around The Concourse at Soldier Field at the match I get a little tap on the shoulder and he's like hey I really like your podcast so Leo thank you for stopping me saying hello giving me some words of encouragement as always it was great to talk to you I hope you enjoyed the rest of the match and for anyone else out there who wants to get in touch with me please feel free to say hi if you see me out at a game if you don't know my face come find me on YouTube at Glass House soccer or please reach out with a couple emails Direct messages I'm on social media at Glasshouse soccer and by email glasshouses soccer gmail.com now speaking of those messages I want to read a little bit from some emails that I got uh one from our good friend Ryan here he titles it a stalemate of mediocrity well that was technically a game Ryan says of the New York City match good defense on both sides although neither offense seem dangerous today why does your boy amsburg keep picking up silly yellow cards minus that he played well yeah was silly he did have he he is playing some silly but I think that is kind of true across a lot of the backline uh I noticed it some after Ezra left but mostly after CJ Brown was sent up to the front office that that backline has absolutely no discipline they're not being coached very well and it doesn't look like they're being held accountable for their lack of discipline on the field and they're so thin in the back as well right now due to the injuries uh but Ryan concludes his brief email by saying this was the sixth game where the fire haven't scored a goal and the third Fire game where it ended 0 just in case you weren't aware I was not aware because I really didn't want to go have to look up those numbers also we got an email from friend of the show Israel who is great running into you at the game it has been a while with with a lot of the matches being played away from Chicago lately uh but there are a couple things that Israel wrote that I wanted to point out to everyone here he says that he's really mad that overrated Shelty will go to the Olympics instead instead of Brady same scenario with krashi guti should have gone instead popularity contest as usual since Chicago players do not get good looks this is what happens when Chicago teams are always losing the rest of the country sees us as chopped liver unfortunately uh great comments I got nothing to add you're absolutely right until the fires start winning games and being taken seriously and competing with some of the top teams in the league no one's going to Care no one's going to get the looks again Chris Brady is probably one of the Best Shot stopping Keepers in the league right now but the fact is his defense keeps letting these shots come in from such close range that his numbers look really really bad and if you're scouting a group of players as wide as American goalkeepers you got to start somewhere and I'm sure a lot of these Scouts just kind of filter out certain stats and just say oh well his save percentage is terrible his goals allow is terrible yeah it's because of the defense anyway uh also what Israel says in his email is I had extremely high hopes for CSUS and Miller I was expecting cus would end up with at least six goals and Mueller with at least eight goals and yeah those two guys have been really disappointing Mueller especially since coming back from his surgery does not have that Breakaway speed that he used to have and just is off just a little bit he is a guy I think who needs to have three four five shots looks on goal to be effective to get that one in you know he has those little curlers from the corner of the Box in him that he loves so much but when you see him uh trying to take on Def Defenders one-on-one and losing the ball early uh he is not getting the ball from his teammates and also when he gets in front of the goal and tries to you know one time it and ends up skying it he's not going to be getting many more passes from his teammates also CSUS had a pretty good season last year considering it was his first year in MLS he was only 19 years old he had that great game against Montreal that I was hoping would kind of be the blueprint for him for the next couple three years but the fact is that the coaching staff are content with playing kypers and Solas as like dual Strikers now and that they were more than happy to play Tom Barlo ahead of cus for most of this season you know or bringing in other Wingers to bolster their offense uh early on in the season when you had guti and shakiri as your kind of main Midfield guys there so cus isn't getting the same looks as he was last season and you know what if you're going to play Barlo and I'm starting to hear this from a lot of other fans if you're going to play Barlo you might as well play pabba one of the cf2 guys who was up on some short-term 4-day deals and remember you only get four 4-day contracts before you actually have to take up a roster spot on the senior team so he's only got another week and a half or so with the senior team hopefully he can get some minutes in the next match or two upcoming and yeah that next match or two Cincinnati and Miami I doubt he's going to get minutes not because he doesn't deserve them or because they shouldn't uh give him the minutes but because I don't think the coaching staff is going to they still think that they've they can put out their same starting 11 guys and get results here and we know that's not the case um Israel you sent me a great email a very long email uh and he actually Compares Tom Barlo to Casper shabil which is hilarious both guys who just can't score with a fire uh so I I I don't think I'm going to be able to get to respond to all your points man but I appreciate you and Ryan emailing in every week and giving me a little bit of fodder to kind of to kind of stoke the Flames here as we get into our main coverage this matchup against New York City FC now what was the most fun about this match was country night it was a great time I don't like country music but it was a blast they had a country band playing and you know old the old man in me is like this music is too loud I'm waiting in line for my kids to ride the bull the the bucking bull ride here and the concert's playing too loud and these kids ears are but it it was a lot of fun uh the kids got to play the games outside uh inside they did get on the ball whoever was running that bull ride were two of the most nicest and most PTI guys considering my little guys could barely get up and on the bowl themselves uh and it was just a lot of fun and I'll say these cowboy hats if you're listening go find me on YouTube right now I got my little Chicago fire red cowboy hat on these cowboy hats might have been the hottest giveaway of the year I had at least three or four people come up to me and just say can I buy those off of you can I have one can my kid have your hat and I'm like no like they're they're for my children also like I'm not selling my kids giveaways plus I like having them like I you know I'm eventually I'm going to start a little wall of of Chicago Fire memorabilia behind me you know maybe when this believe ad Revenue picks up and I can buy some nice shelves or something to put behind me in my little basement office here but um yeah I like having this stuff it's fun and you know my daughter is not a huge sports fan but when she heard it was country night and she'd get to rock her red cowboy hat she was all about it she didn't take it off for for most of the match uh but yeah the bull ride was fun I'm an old man when it comes to Old noises and things but I will tell you the noise in the stadium when they had those couple of opportunities was great they announced over 25,000 people at the stadium I think the fire had the third highest attendance announced attendance in MLS this weekend great great Saturday night in Chicago it was beautiful the rain didn't hit until later and Joe thanks for tweeting at me saying hey I walked home in the rain cuz I stayed late at the stadium and it felt very fitting to walk home from that game in the rain you're not right that was the sentiment there in this z0 draw when the team looked lethargic lacking an urgency no offensive creativity hang on did I say those exact three things last week when we were talking about the one nothing loss at San Jose I did I didn't even have to update my show notes like you just copy and paste a lot of this stuff from week to week here because of how the team came out they it looked like both of these teams were playing for a point on the road even though the fire were the home team and supposedly put out a good lineup here I don't know why they weren't going for it as much as they should have been or even with those late Subs you saw CSUS come in and try to have some energy and it looked like they just give him the green light to go wherever go find the game go get on the ball go make something happen because even though he's coming in and technically has a position as as a forward player or as a striker or subbing in for someone who has an assigned position he's all over the pitch and if they're going to use him that way that's great but they've got to start actually thinking about how to use that in a in a in a useful sense in a productive sense not just go see if you can make something happen cuz that pretty much is how the fire won the two games the one against Montreal and the one against Philly like just let's see what can happen go nuts throw the ball forward maybe something will happen uh this isn't a you know a bad hockey team here just shoot put the puck on net and and you'll find something if if you want to take advantage of CSUS is kind of chaos or or free range you need to learn how to use it you need to get him to either pressure a particular defender or a particular area of the field you need to control and dominate you can't just let him run it all over the place because then his teammates don't know what to expect and he's just expending energy as well so he needs to pick and choose when he is going high press or when other players are pressing right instead of just throwing numbers forward pick and choose who you want to press what scenarios you want to press in and then how when you turn the ball over how are you going to Counterattack because we saw late there were a lot of guys who were walking in those counterattacks in those transition moments and it did not lead to anything credit to New York they were getting numbers back late to preserve that point on the road that z00 draw but man it was not there was not any sort of urgency or usefulness to how they were using their subs and the other little bit of criticism I'll give why is Chris Brady falling on the ball at at home when there's stoppage time are you that afraid you're going to lose the game late then that's a problem of mentality and culture and coaching staff and front office staff need to be held accountable as much as the players when your own keeper is wasting time to preserve a point at home in stoppage time that tells you you have no faith in your defense and maybe you shouldn't but that also tells you that you are scared and that you are just playing and going through the motions in fact maybe that's what I'll title this episode going Through the Motions because that's exactly what the fire did in this game now let's take a look at their lineup they played a 352 which we've been seeing them play uh lately Brady inette chios olsburg and Suk in the backline aragonia a Costa gastone gimenez again in the captain's armband for whatever reason uh in the center and Gutierrez and Mueller outright kypers and H salassi as you'll D dual Strikers and then you saw Jonathan Dean Mauricio pan Tom Barlo y cus being brought in as Subs there uh the statistics of this match about even possession according to MLS soccer.com Chicago had 50.1% possession oh look they improved from their San Jose game instead of 10 shots with one on goal they had 11 shots with two on goal not good not good at all the defense blocked three shots they only had 378 total passes uh compared to nyc's 37 2 passing accuracy 82% to nyc's 80.4% so a very very even game and when it's a boring game and both teams are playing even you know the home team and and a team that should be the aggressor in the fire uh definitely played below what expectations should have been Corners Six Corners seven total crosses one offside uh 18 aerial du W to New York's 24 so they were getting outd in the air oddly enough their XG was 1.4 so two shots on goal 12 shots total or I'm sorry 11 shots total and a 1.4 XG so a little bit of a higher XG than we've seen in recent form but still not nearly good enough offense uh Brady is credited with one save uh the defense had two clearances 13 fouls and four yep four yellow cards uh let's see if there's any other statistics to go over here the one statistical thing I I wanted to point out this is on the New York side of things when we did the preview in the last episode you know I looked at New York's touches and passes in in which zone of the field the defensive third middle third or attacking Third and New York City had the majority of their touches and passes in the middle and attacking third and they have a possession based system which allows them to maintain pressure in the their opponent's defensive third so even if they do turn the ball over they have a lot of their team there ready to counter press and re win the ball back and regain that possession but in this game they actually had a an average height of defensive action uh less than that of the Chicago Fire and it was in and that line was about in their defensive third maybe approaching that border of the defensive third to the middle third of the field so New York City played very very conservatively very defensive minded maybe they're afraid of kypers and H Salas on the Counterattack I don't know maybe they're buying into some of the hype that gueston him menz is this great midfielder regista passer that who's going to find them we haven't seen that and by the way I got into a discussion with someone on Twitter about gueston himz and how they're like he's so talented don't get down on Jimenez all these teams in South America are raiding him I'm like clearly not at the value of the fire R because they would have transferred him already and the fact that he's talented has no bearing on how well he actually plays we saw it with shakiri we're seeing it with Jimenez and we're seeing with with other players uh on the fire as well who yeah everyone at this level is talented but you got to play like it and you have to do it consistently and that has not been the calling card of the Chicago Fire in a very very long time all right moving down my outline here what else did I want to tell you about this match uh I think that's about it I think we need to move on to the second half of the show and as always at this as we transition into the second half we take our water break here which is sponsored by skira Icelandic Spring Water Icelandic for clear skira water comes from a spring and a government protected Nature Preserve in Iceland with naturally low mineral content this isn't your average water clearly pun intended it's one of the best and skira is available at your local 7-Eleven now let's look at some headlines from around the and get into their next match against FC Cincinnati now this J this July 17th Wednesday match against Cincinnati we'll see miles Robinson out due to Red Card suspension and then he'll be off playing in the Olympics he's one of the three overage players on the Olympic roster it's a U23 roster but you're allowed three overage it's him Walker Zimmerman and Jordi mahovich which I do find interesting because you've got Robinson and Zimmerman as I I wanted to say they're starters but they didn't they didn't feature it all in uh cop America and Jordy mahovich has been on the outside looking in throughout bare Halter's tenure so like I don't know what the plan was to have these guys be your overage guys if you're trying to see are they going to be leaders are they going to evaluate are they going to help people try to develop or do they actually want them because these are positions of Need for this under 23 roster I'm not sure it doesn't make a lot of sense to me as far as grooming the next generation of senior team players or going out and trying to win the Olympics get a gold in the Olympics or medal in the Olympics if you want to do that a lot of people and I tend to do agree say put Brandon Vasquez on there get this big old Striker who's got a point to prove especially when the usmnt hasn't been able to score goals and he hasn't been on the roster like that would be a great move unless it's just you know admitting you're wrong when you add him on the Olympic roster and he goes and lights up the the tournament again assuming he does but but anyway back to the to the point at hand here miles Robinson will not be playing in this matchup against Cincinnati and we'll see if the league releases uh their the availability report uh sometime on Tuesday as I record this it is Monday the 15th uh but even without Robinson even with the midweek matchup I I still don't see the fire winning this game they have proven to be in a terrible run of form now uh th those great games uh back when they had a four game point streak seemed like last season and I don't see them winning a against FC Cincinnati in Cincinnati the prior result this season when they played Cincinnati at home here in Chicago it was a 2-1 loss miles Robinson got the late second half winner in that one uh also Cincinnati is coming off of a poor 3 to1 home loss to Charlotte now that's not a knock on Charlotte but if you're trying to win the shield if you're trying to win the number one spot throughout the playoffs you don't lose to Charlotte and I think Cincinnati will be looking for a bounceback performance and who poor Chicago fight are going to be their whipping Boys on top of that take a look at what Columbus did whooping lafc 51 if you think this is Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better Or kind of a keeping up with the Joneses kind of a thing these two soccer neighbors here they are going to look to come out and stop on the Chicago Fire and I am not excited for what is going to happen there now Cincinnati comes in as the number one team in MLS they are on 48 points they are one point ahead of inter Miami uh by virtue of a 15 wins five losses and three draws crazy thing about Cincinnati their home record six wins four losses two draws they're a away record nine wins one loss one draw they have an amazing plus 14 goal differential here which is third in the Eastern Conference and three four fifth overall in the league Columbus has an outstanding plus 26 goal differential I don't know how anyone's going to catch them as far as goal scored um but you've got them sitting in the top of the Eastern Conference wanting to hold on to uh the supporter shield and that number one playoff spot they don't want to have to go to Columbus they don't want to have to go to Miami uh and they want they don't want to have to go to RSL or lafc come come postseason here recent run of form has been good for them they are coming off that 3-1 loss to Charlotte but prior to that 6-1 victory over Miami uh a 3-2 victory at DC and a one- nothing victory at Dallas so they are I I would say that Charlotte loss is is the outlier there and they're going to come in playing well for that Charlotte game they lined up in a 3421 uh we know Santano is in goal you've got Ian Murphy along the backline miles Robinson was their Center back again he won't be in this in this upcoming match uh and Alvis PA was outright in your Midfield they had a defensive line of yil Assad Pavo bua Yaya yayak Kubo and DeAndre Yedlin your attacking midfielders Lucho aosta and Luca orano and their Striker up front Kevin Kelce so you might see Kip Keller getting uh the start for Miles Robinson you might see Valenzuela get a start as well they're at home I don't think they're going to try to drop back and play you know four or five defensive back line I think they're going to stay in this 3 421 and be very very attack-minded again you have Sergio Santos you have Cory bar on the bench as well uh to come in and and give an offensive boost you've got Brett Hy also on the bench for them who can who can come in and provide some solid play and you've got Aaron Buena who we saw have a great game against Chicago the last time he was in Chicago so that is uh their lineup there you want to talk about players to watch we all know it's the MVP candidate Lucho a Costa he's got 11 goals on the season 17 assists uh 82 key passes I don't know of another player in the league who is anywhere near him in key passes at least off the top of my head uh I don't even think Messi's there just because he's missed so much time whether for injury rest or International Duty uh his expected goals on the season is 9.7 so he's a little ahead of his expected goals and he he gets into uh attacking positions he's got 17 offside on the season so he is doing everything for this FC Cincinnati team your next highest goal scorer scorer yayak Kubo with nine you've got Kevin Kelce and Luca orano with five goals a piece Pavo bua on four and then a number of other players with uh two and one goals you want to talk about assists again you've got Lucho osta as their assist leader with 17 orano has six Assad and bua with five and then several other players with 32 or one assist so there is a lot of team play and it's going to be very very difficult for the Chicago Fire to put up with this kind of Firepower in an opposition I don't see the fire getting a win here I see Cincinnati especially being at home just piling it on this could be 4 to one 4 nothing uh in favor of the home team I am not excited to have to sit down and watch Chicago take their licks here then again I said NYC and Chicago would play to a 2-2 draw but it ended up a z00 draw so there's that uh all right that's my prediction I think it's going to be a whooping I think ciny puts up four on Chicago and we are all left just scratching our heads and saying hey maybe maybe shakiri can come in and do something now that he's retiring from International Duty that's the other headline that was out there after uh the Euros were completed Jeran shakiri announced he is retiring from international soccer uh he's hanging the boots for the Swiss national team after uh probably the best career a Swiss International has ever had um I think they said he has scored in three different world cups and three different Euros for Switzerland he's played in four World Cups and I think four Euros as well like he has done everything that Switzerland has asked him to do at an international level so now that's in in the books and in the reiew hey maybe he starts listening to some of the criticism why can't you do that for Chicago and maybe helps turn it around a little bit anyway nothing I've seen so far suggests that but what man can dream right the other dream was that while he was over there in Europe he would get a transfer and there were rumors that were coming out that Patos uh a team in Greece who's usually top four in the Greek League there along with olympos Ike uh and you know another random team or two whoever kind of move up um that's why I'm wearing my pan Coast t-shirt here shout out to my brother-in-law Chris I know that's your team uh and he was when I sent him the rumors that Shakir was going over there the only thing he responded back was wow uh but yeah apparently they couldn't get the deal done they were going to try to work something out where the fire wouldn't have to eat a ton of his salary uh and that the team was paying him a similar salary and and maybe if the fire were going to eat something then they would pay it off in a bonus that bathan nios would offset it as a bonus or whatever the case was but didn't get it done and Kos was quoted as saying he expects sh car to be back with the fire sometime this week uh so we have that to look forward to fire fans the other bit of major league soccer news that just came out couple hours before I'm recording this is that Chicho arango received a four match suspension and it's a very odd suspension because it's a mix of of competitions here here's the announcement from MLS soccer.com MLS has suspended RSL forward Christian Chicho arango four matches for violating the MLS anti-harassment policy so I don't know if you was harassing fans I have to go find and figure this out a little bit more or or who he was harassing here arango will miss rsl's next two regular season games he'll miss the All-Star Game and their first leagues Cup match so what a wild suspension not only does he get four games which seems to be pretty harsh considering I think this is probably his first offense you know his first off the- field issue if you will but then he loses out on the star game and loses out on League's cup that's a huge blow I can't believe that MLS is doing this to one of their top players in their top teams I'm glad there're suspending players who deserve it but the fact that he's missing out on exhibition matches and a manufactured tournament that is that is interesting to me as a fan I'm going to miss watching him play but that is a very interesting way they decided to Dole out his suspension uh the the announcement ends uh through Match Day 26 he leads the Golden Boot race with 17 goals 11 assists in 23 matches and I'm trying to pull up the official Club statement here um the the official Club statement arango's been suspended for three RSL matches and the All-Star Game for violation of the MLS anti-harassment policy the club has fully cooperated with mls's investigation and accepts the disciplinary decision that's it there's their official announcement so odd times going on in MLS uh as far as looking around some of the world soccer uh news obviously it's the Euros in Copa America that have grabbed all the headlines Spain defeats England 2 to1 to win the Euros Argentina defeats Colombia one- nothing and added extra time to win Copa America and that that I got to stay up it was great having uh one of my cousins from Michigan in came over to the house late and logged in with his Fox Sports account we got to watch the match uh so Anthony glad you were here and glad you shared your password for the night with me um so it was it was a lot of fun watching the game with you but uh you know an otherwise decent match uh that had some great moments of Brilliance and and some great soccer that was otherwise marred by everything that went on before the match with the mobs rushing past security uh destroying barricades people practically getting crushed people passing out from the heat getting stuck in the mob Ju Just mob rule there's also video on social media of fans uh who did not have tickets climbing in air ducks like getting into the mechanical Works to try to get into the stadium uh I saw there were only about 75 arrests including the head of the Colombian Federation who wasn't arrested like trying to rush into the stadium of course he was he he was there he he he probably had tickets or some credentials but he tried to get onto the field after the game and Security's like no no no you're not going on the field and he tried to push his way past security and he and his son ended up getting being arrested so uh a lot of craziness going on down there but you know we got to watch the game eventually for someone at home sitting on my couch you know I got to watch a watch a decent game but I can't imagine what it was like to have been there or for you to have been turned away in instances or have to make the decision not to go and use your tickets uh because of how unsafe it was so that difficult all around uh but as far as you know the MLS and a little bit of the Chicago Fire impact we saw how messy ended up with a couple of ankle injuries his one ankle had just swollen up to the size of a softball man and I'm not talking about your fast pitch college softball I'm talking about Chicago 16in uh mushball softball there Clincher softball uh where that doesn't even fit in Ms you just got to use your hands with it like that was a a real nasty swellen ankle and hopefully he can get back into form and get ready for the Chicago match just just because I want to see him play or I want to try and resell my tickets I'll be honest um but hey if he's not there and and I end up going to the match at least we got the Jason dero concert to look forward to right fire fans that's that's good consolation can't sell your tickets and make some money back you can't see Messi play but hey Jason dulo right that's going to offset It Anyway let's hope that's not the case and with that we have expended all of our time this week I thank you for tuning in and listening to me each and every episode please like subscribe rate review whether it's it's good pods iTunes uh whether you give me five stars on Spotify or go on to the believe Network and find me I really appreciate everyone who has reached out to me let me know what you think of the show who shared the show and who is helping me grow this one listen at a time uh we'll be back again later in the week recapping the Cincinnati matchup and looking ahead to the fires next matches but as always fire fans let's go fire [Music] d