Heading into the final game of the regular season, few expected Real Salt Lake to make the playoffs, let alone win the MLS Cup.
But Sunday night, Real Salt Lake achieved the improbable, defeating the star-studded L.A. Galaxy 5-4 (1-1) in penalties to win the first trophy in club history.
As Fire fans know all too well, the win is the second consecutive penalty shootout victory for Real Salt Lake, who defeated the Galaxy after the seventh round of spot kicks. Salt Lake keeper Nick Rimando again came up huge in the shootout, stopping Jovan Kirovski and Edson Buddle to propel RSL to victory. Galaxy Captain Landon Donovan was the goat for L.A., shockingly hitting his penalty attempt over the bar.
Defender Robbie Russell clinched the title for RSL, putting his penalty just inside the left post and collapsing in joy after seeing it go in. The game was only the second MLS final to go into penalty kicks, the first being the 2006 final between Houston and New England.
A common saying amongst those in the soccer world is that a penalty kick shootout is a cruel way to decide a match.
After Saturday night, the Chicago Fire knows that saying back to front.
120 minutes of action saw the Fire and Real Salt Lake knotted at 0-0 so it all came down to a penalty shootout. The Fire came up losers in the decisive shootout, falling by the razor thin margin of 5-4 to put a painful end to a season filled with ups and downs.
"It's a real empty feeling and that's the bottom line," said Fire Head Coach Denis Hamlett. "There's not really much you can say. [Our guys] put everything out there and competed and tried. When you get to PK's someone's got to lose and when you lose it's not an easy thing."
What a night at Toyota Park.
After losing the first leg of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series with New England 2-1, the Fire stormed back in dramatic fashion tonight, getting a 2-0 victory to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals on a 3-2 aggregate score.
Cuauhtemoc Blanco and John Thorrington scored the goals for the Fire, who will take on fourth seeded Real Salt Lake in the Conference Final next Saturday at Toyota Park.
I'm assuming you guys all watched the match and know all about of the highlights (if you don't, you can check out my Tribune article here) so I'll skip the usual match recap song-and-dance for now and just get right to the meat of the story -- the questions for you guys.
In-stadium rivals Chivas USA and the L.A. Galaxy played to an exciting 2-2 draw Sunday night, setting the stage for what will be the most important MLS "Super Clasico" to date next Sunday.
Chivas USA got off to a hot start in the match and they took the lead in just the 4th minute when Maicon Santos drilled a right footed shot past L.A. keeper Donovan Ricketts and into the back of the net. The Galaxy didn't take long to equalize though, and forward Mike Magee knotted the game at 1 in the 14th.
L.A. took the lead in the 41st minute, when Donovan took advantage of a failed clearance by Santos to slot home from short range. But L.A.'s lead -- like Chivas's before them -- was short lived as substitute forward Maykel Galindo knotted the game at 2 in the 50th minute.
The draw makes next Sunday's match a winner take all affair with the victor advancing to the Western Conference Final against either Houston or Seattle -- which played to a 0-0 draw on Thursday. L.A. has the slight advantage going into to Game 2 as they will be the home team for the decisive second leg.
I'll be back later today with more coverage of yesterday's Fire-Revs game so be sure to check back for that.
The Fire headed into Sunday's Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals at the New England Revolution knowing that they couldn't afford to give the Revs many set piece opportunities.
"We have to limit their set pieces," Fire Head Coach Denis Hamlett said earlier this week. "[We have to be careful on] throw-ins and corner kicks because they do well with those."
But the Fire wasn't able to control New England's dead ball opportunities and they paid the price for it, surrendering two goals off of set pieces to fall to the Revolution 2-1. The loss puts all the pressure on the Fire, who now needs a victory in next Saturday's series deciding Game 2 just to have a chance to advance to the Eastern Conference Final.
Real Salt Lake got a late goal from striker Robbie Findley to defeat Columbus 1-0 in the opening game of their Eastern Conference Semifinal series Saturday night.
The match looked to be headed to a scoreless draw, but that all changed in the 88th minute when Findley slotted home a Yura Movsisyan cross to give RSL the win.
Salt Lake's victory puts all the pressure on the 1st seeded Crew, who need a win in Thursday night's Game 2 -- which will be played at Columbus -- to have a chance at advancing to the Eastern Conference final against either the Fire or New England.
The playoffs opened up last night in front of a raucous 30,000 + fans at Qwest Field in Seattle last night, but the expansion Sounders went home disappointed as they failed to find the back of the net in their 0-0 draw with the Houston Dynamo.
With the tie, Houston now only has to win at home when the series resumes on November 8th to advance to the Western Conference Finals.
Check out the video highlights of the match here.
And click here for a post game piece printed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that takes a look at the refereeing and the infamous 0-0 tie...
That's all I have for now, but I'll be back soon with a Fire-New England match preview so check back for that.
The Fire finally clinched their spot in the playoffs tonight, earning the second seed in the Eastern Conference with a 1-0 win at a rain-soaked Toyota Park over Western Conference leaders Chivas USA.
The Fire, who took the lead in the 67th minute when Chivas forward Eduardo Lillingston put a Cuauhtemoc Blanco corner kick in the back of the net for an own goal, snapped a six game winless streak with the loss and now enters the postseason with a little bit of momentum.
"We've had a lot of adversity this season and it shows a lot of strength on the team's part to come through that," said Fire defender Brandon Prideaux. "Coming down to the wire is good. We get to play these important games - that for us was a playoff game - and now we come into next week with that playoff mentality already."
If someone would have told me midway through the season that the Fire's playoff fate would be in the balance heading into their final match, I would've have called them crazy.
But here we are. After tonight's 0-0 draw at the Revolution, the Fire find themselves with one game left to play and their future still uncertain.
Heading into Friday night's game against the L.A. Galaxy, Fire Head Coach Denis Hamlett knew to watch out for the Los Angeles counterattack.
"They're a very good counterattacking team," Hamlett said of the Galaxy. "They have some good guys [that will] test out our back four."
But knowledge isn't always power, and the Galaxy proved that at the Home Depot Center tonight, scoring a counterattacking goal to defeat the Fire 1-0.
Playing without injured attackers Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Chris Rolfe, the Fire played to what they called a "disappointing" 2-2 draw with Toronto FC at Toyota Park tonight.
The second place Fire, who has now tied three matches in a row, fall five points behind the league leading Columbus with the result - effectively eliminating them from the race for the Supporter's Shield.
"We battled hard again but how many times are we going to say that this year?" said Fire goalie Jon Busch. "Enough is enough already. We gift wrapped the goals like its [expletive] Christmas. If they beat us with a good goal fair enough, but if we're giving away easy goals then we're putting ourselves behind the 8 ball and that's the bottom line."
The Fire had it all to fight for on Sunday afternoon against the Columbus Crew. First place in the East, a shot at the Supporter's Shield, home field advantage in the playoffs, you name it and the Fire had it in their grasp this afternoon at Toyota Park but in the end it all slipped away as the two sides played to a very controversial 2-2 draw.
The Fire opened the scoring in the 6th minute of play when midfielder Peter Lowry one-timed Brian McBride's back pass off of the far post and into the back of the net.
"It was just a good ball across and Brian put it in a good spot," said Lowry. "I just wanted to make a play at it and thankfully I was able to hit the far post and [put it in]."
After getting a well-deserved week off to rest their legs, the Fire came into tonight's match against Real Salt Lake ready to start the final two months of the season with yet another road win. And while at times it looked like the Fire would be able to pick up all three points at Rio Tinto Stadium, in the end it wasn't to be, and the two teams played to a 1-1 tie.
The Fire struggled to get settled into the match early on but eventually the side turned it around and started playing some attractive attacking soccer, nearly going ahead in the 24th minute through Brian McBride. But the veteran McBride - who was in the starting lineup for the first time since he underwent shoulder surgery in July - saw his close range header of a Mike Banner free kick somehow miss the target and go over the bar.
The Fire didn't have to wait too much longer to break through though and Chicago took the lead in the 44th minute through forward Chris Rolfe. Rolfe - playing his first game since the announcement that he will be joining Danish club Aalborg at the end of the season - used a chest trap to control an inch-perfect Marco Pappa cross onto his right foot before flicking the ball past keeper Nick Rimando and into the back of the net.
El Salvador gave the U.S. a whole lot to handle on Saturday night, but in the end the Americans pulled through, winning the important World Cup Qualifier 2-1 in Salt Lake City. The U.S. - who now has 12 points from seven games in the final qualification round - moves into second place with the win, trailing Honduras only on goal differential.
Coming off of last Sunday's thrilling, come from behind 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rapids, the Fire put in a very disappointing performance tonight, falling to longtime rivals D.C. United 1-0 at Toyota Park.
Bryan Namoff scored the lone goal of the match in the 11th minute, when he flicked home a fantastic Christian Gomez free kick from the top of the 6 yard box.
"We talked about it during the week, they aim for Namoff [on set pieces] and Gomez sent a good ball in and namoff got his head on it," said Fire keeper Jon Busch. "It's the same old story, we break teams down in scouting reports, we know where they're dangerous and then they beat us on what we talked about. It's frustrating."
The Fire pulled off a wild one tonight - getting three goals in the last 20 minutes to defeat the Colorado Rapids 3-2.
"This was a test for us, this was a test to see what kind of character we have," said a very happy Jon Busch. "Everybody stepped up. We got behind the eight ball a little bit but we didn't hang our heads. I couldn't be prouder of these guys, it was awesome."
In an effort that can only be classified as pathetic, the Fire lost for the third time in four games Wednesday night, this time falling to the L.A. Galaxy by a score of 2-0.
"If you can't get up for big games like this I don't know what the problem is," said Fire keeper Jon Busch. "This is a big game. This is when big players step up. It doesn't have to be fancy soccer it has to be effective soccer and it was not effective. It doesn't matter about flicks and fancy and I can put a ball here and I can put a ball there, that's bulls**t. The bottom line is about effective soccer and it was not effective soccer from any of us tonight."
For a team playing without its entire starting backline, a starting midfielder, and two starting forwards, the Fire did pretty well for themselves Sunday afternoon, ending their two-game losing streak with a 2-0 win over the Kansas City Wizards at CommunityAmerica Ballpark.
The Fire - who was playing their first game after Bakary Soumare's and Denis Hamlett's "locker room incident" - took the lead in the 13th minute through Chris Rolfe. Rolfe - whose goal was his second in as many games - combined nicely with midfielder Marco Pappa before firing home a right footed strike from 15 yards out.
In a match that lived up to all of its billing, all of the hype, the Mexico defeated the U.S. 2-1 in a World Cup Qualifying Match at the vaunted Estadio Azteca.
Mexico dominated the possession for the entire 90 minutes but it was the U.S. that struck first, scoring the opener through forward Charlie Davies in the 9th minute. Davies - who found himself unmarked and with the ball on his feet on the left flank after a great diagonal through ball from Landon Donovan - finished his chance nicely, curling his shot past Mexican keeper Guillermo Ochoa and into the back of the net.
In a thrilling match full of injuries, controversy and goals, the Fire came out losers Sunday night, falling to the MLS leading Houston Dynamo 3-2 at Robertson Stadium.
The Fire - who saw their five game MLS unbeaten streak come to a close - couldn't catch a break all night long and fell victim to injuries and some questionable refereeing throughout the match.
The Fire's SuperLiga dream came to a not so super close tonight, as the team lost a gutting match to Tigres UANL 4-3 in penalty kicks at Toyota Park.
The Fire came out on all cylinders to start the match and they were able to take the early lead in the 10th minute when Patrick Nyarko neatly flicked a Gonzalo Segares cross inside the near post of a diving Cirilo Saucedo from about 6 yards out.
The Fire and Real Salt Lake squared off in the first of their two meetings on the year Saturday night at Toyota Park and the Fire walked away winners, defeating the Utah squad 1-0.
The match looked to be heading towards a scoreless draw but Patrick Nyarko saved the day for the Fire in the 76th minute. His tally - his fourth of the year - gave the team all the cushion it needed and secured the three points for the Fire.
Heading into Saturday's match at Seattle, the Fire knew that it would be a tough task to leave the Pacific Northwest with a result. But after 90 minutes of supercharged soccer action, the Fire was able escape Qwest Field with a point, tying the expansion Sounders 0-0.
The U.S. blanked Honduras 2-0 tonight at Soldier Field and, in doing so, advanced to their third straight Gold Cup final.
The final, which will be played on Sunday at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford N.J., will feature the U.S. against Mexico or Costa Rica, who are currently tied 0-0 in the second half of a highly entertaining match.
Click here to read the match report I wrote for the Tribune and read on for a few thoughts I had on the match.
A depleted Fire team beat the San Jose Earthquakes 2-0 tonight at Toyota Park. Check out the link for my Tribune recap and continue after the jump for a little something extra...
To put it lightly, Cuauhtemoc Blanco has been struggling as of late. The Mexican forward hadn't played a good match in weeks but when the Fire needed 'Temo to step up in tonight's SuperLiga semifinal match at New England he did, and in a big way.
Blanco notched an assist and scored the game winning goal for the Fire in their 2-1 victory over the Revolution that propels the club into the August 5th SuperLiga tournament final. The Fire gets back into action on Saturday when they host San Jose in MLS action but for now they have to be savoring tonight's win.
The Fire were able to score the first goal of the match in the 34th minute when Blanco was able to evade several Revolution defenders to hit a perfect cross to the feet of a waiting Brian McBride who made no mistake in slotting the ball past keeper Matt Reis from the penalty spot.
