Chicago Fire 0 at 0 Sporting Kansas City

After the exciting opening that game was a bit of snooze.

Similar to the morning game the home team had the majority of the possession  but unlike NY, KC had no one to blame for their inability to score but themselves. Where as DC played great defense under constant barrage on net, KC only managed one shot on goal in the first half and only three on target overall.

 KC came out strong and looked fluid, the addition of CJ Sapong added some more physicality and athleticism to the KC attack. However after the first 15 minutes of so it became  apparent that  Chicago was going to foul to slow down the KC possession  and KC seemed to become intimated by the physicality. Instead of really going at the Chicago defense they passed around to little success. To many times today KC had a chance only to take one touch to many or sky the shot over the bar.

KC is a different team than last year gone is the dervish Espinoza and instead you have a more cerebral Midfield with Nagamoura and Fielhaber. This team has the quality to pretty possession soccer, which they showed today. However losing Espinoza and Kamara not only slowed the team down, which I would argue is good. KC also lost some forward thrust which is something they will need to address. With the talent on that team odds are that KC will figure out how to play possession first soccer and attack with a purpose. I think moving Sapong center and having Beiler plalying as the second striker or on the wing will help the attack with stretching the field and some height on crosses.

As for Chicago I know it is only a few games but so far they look lost. Although I was only planing on watching/covering the three NBC games and the rocky mountain cup, I pulled up the Toronto Montreal match on my laptop because this game was so devoid of meaningful action. Montreal has a lot more going for it than Chicago, and even Toronto seems more likely to score than Chicago does. I for one am surprised that the Fire can not seem to create much out of midfield with Larentowicz and Lindpere (who did not play today). You expected Rolfe to cause havoc, the only offense that Chicago seems capable of producing. I am not sure that Chicago is going to be able to do much at all this season.