The New York Red Bulls will try to end a five-match winless streak when they visit the Chicago Fire on Saturday.
The Red Bulls (1-3-5, nine points) suffered a 2-0 loss on the road to Eastern Conference cellar dweller CF Montreal last weekend. The setback left New York 0-2-3 since picking up its lone win of the season with a 2-1 victory over the visiting Columbus Crew on March 18.
The Fire (2-2-4, 10 points) are coming off a much-needed 3-0 win over Midwest Premier League side Chicago House AC in the third round of the U.S. Open Cup on Wednesday. The victory came four days after the Fire fell 2-1 to host Atlanta United in the final seconds in their most recent MLS game last Sunday.
After the Fire pulled even against Atlanta on Kacper Przybylko’s goal in the 90th minute, Chicago conceded an own goal in the ninth minute of stoppage time.
Atlanta’s Juan Jose Purata headed Machop Chol’s corner kick off Fire midfielder Maren Haile-Selassie’s back and past helpless goalkeeper Chris Brady.
“We didn’t take our chances and that came back and hurt us in the end. Because at the end of the day this could have been a 4- or 3-2 game,” Chicago coach Ezra Hendrickson said. “So we gotta execute better in the box and take our chances, especially on the road. We didn’t do that but I thought those extra minutes really wore us down. We put effort into getting that tying goal and then we just didn’t have it all.”
The Red Bulls fell behind early and never recovered against Montreal. After Andres Reyes’ own goal gave Montreal a 1-0 lead in the 25th minute, the Red Bulls had a golden chance to take control of the game when Montreal’s Ilias Iliadis was shown a red card in the 65th minute.
But New York couldn’t capitalize, as Mathieu Choiniere scored in the second minute of stoppage time to secure Montreal’s win.
Red Bulls defender Kyle Duncan picked up his fifth yellow card of the season and will be suspended for Saturday’s game.
“There’s pressure every game to perform and obviously we didn’t do it today,” Red Bulls defender Sean Nealis said. “There’s a lot of disappointment. There’s a lot of frustration. We need to be better. We have to look ourselves in the mirror, especially the players. You know, we didn’t go out and perform to the best of our ability and it showed today with a result that didn’t go our way.”
–Field Level Media