Chicago

The Chicago Fire escaped with a tie in their season opener against Real Salt Lake on Saturday, thanks to a last minute goal by Cuauhtemoc Blanco. The goal, which found the back of the net in the 90th minute (really the 92nd minute) was a huge relief to those fans watching the game with me at Villains Bar & Grill in the South Loop, and I'm sure Fire fans everywhere.

The match started slowly for both sides. The Fire's defense, which consisted of a back line of Bakary Soumare, Brandon Prideaux, and Gonzalo Segares were solid, stymying the persistent RSL attack. Jon Busch was solid in goal, shutting down RSL whenever they got off a good shot.

On offense, the Fire were pitiful. Chad Barrett and Tomasz Frankowski were up front, and neither were any where close to effective. The mid-fielders had a solid showing. Justin Mapp seemed a step faster than the RSL defense, but was being fouled hard any time he touched the ball.

The Fire's only real first-half chance at a goal came about fifteen minutes in, when Temoc found the ball at his foot in traffic, but sent it wide of the net. RSL had several opportunities, including one that looked like a sure goal, but Fabian Espindola tried for three, easily putting the ball through the uprights at Rice-Eccles stadium. (That would be the field goal posts which were thankfully not actually there, although the artificial turf in Utah must have permanent paint on it as the football lines were in full view.)

In fact, the only remarkable thing that occurred in the first half was the 'loose officiating.' Essentially, the referee must have lost his whistle because I don't think he blew on it the entire time. There was one particularly memorable sequence that featured three hard fouls in about forty seconds. Each foul was successively harder, and the entire bar couldn't believe any of them were ignored, much less all of them.

The second half was called a bit more closely, and perhaps as a result, it was more eventful. It featured four yellow cards, the first three for legitimate calls, and the last against the Fire. (smirk).

After the Fire's offense showed poorly in the first half, it pretty much vanished once Dennis Hamlett substituted Stephen King for Justin Mapp in the 54th minute. Unable to sustain an attack, RSL continued to press against the Fire defense, which finally gave way when Dema Kovalenko sent a beautiful cross right in front of the net. Bakary Soumare was trying to knock the cross away, but it hit off his leg into the net.

Even though it was an own-goal, I don't think anyone was too frustrated with Baky. He was closely marking the RSL striker (I think it was Espindola again), and if Baky had missed the ball, Espindola would have surely netted it himself. Besides, Soumare saved several goals with some otherwise excellent defensive work on the afternoon.

Minutes after the own-goal, things started looking up for the Fire. Tomasz Frankowski, who was invisible most of the game, was subbed out for Andy Herron in the 76th minute. Herron was joined a few minutes later by Calen Carr (in for Bakary) and the Fire were pressing RSL for the last few minutes.

Still, it looked all for naught as the minutes wound off the clock. But two minutes into injury time, Blanco found the ball at his foot and placed a beautiful shot right into the net. Go crazy folks! Rarely is a tie as welcome. Sure, we should have won the game on paper, but RSL played much better than us most of the match, and we walked away with a point on the road. I'll take it.