Drowned out: Toluca FC 3, Chicago Fire 1
Bridgeview, Ill. — Many games are “must-win” but for the first time in the Fire’s season, they faced a literal must win game against Toluca FC in their second and for their second and final group stage match. They fell short, falling 3-1 to their Liga MX opponent, ending the team’s Leagues Cup tournament in the group stage.
Although individual players had strong performances – notably, Justin Reynolds whose senior debut has seemed imminent for years but did not occur until this match – many of the issues that have long dogged the team, including key opposition players left unmarked in the box, generating too few good chances off of strong opportunities and being too slow to react to shifts in the opposing team’s tactics or formations were in evidence during the loss.
Despite taking place just outside of Chicago in the Fire’s former home, the game was officially a Toluca home game due to tournament seeding. It also felt very much like a Toluca home game. As expected given the traditional colors of both teams, the crowd of 16,228 was largely decked out in red, but the cheers for los Diablos came from notably more quarters than those for the Fire.
Although a number of supporters groups from around the league issued statements that they were boycotting the tournament, including one from the Fire, the supporters section was relatively full and supporters unveiled an overhead tifo saying saying “de rojo siempre,” and although the context was off, given that the Fire were in their white away jerseys, the intention was clear.
Both teams yielded rotated lineups for the tournament match. Spencer Richey once again got the nod for the Fire in net, and Justin Reynolds made his first start with a senior team, marking the second match in a row where a Fire player made their debut first team start following Jaylen Shannon last game. As Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas indicated before the game, neither team-leading scorer Hugo Cuypers nor Xherdan Shaqiri, the highest-paid player in team history, were in the lineup. In a surprise move, Allan Arigoni was available on the bench for the Fire.
Toluca FC Head Coach Renato Paiva also left winger Maximiliano Araújo out of the lineup and captain Vega Ernesto on the bench, with the armband instead going to Claudio Baeza.
Toluca held the momentum from kickoff, with two shots coming from Toluca’s Paulinho in the sixth minute. With the Fire conceding two corners in short succession shortly thereafter, it felt as if Toluca were firmly taking control of the game.
In the eight minute, however, Brian Gutiérrez slotted a perfectly weighted pass to Georgios Koutsias dead center in the box, giving the Greek forward an unhindered look at Toluca goalkeeper Tiago Volpi’s net, and the Greek winger would make no mistake as he notched his second goal in as many games to put the Fire up 1-0.
The goal energized the Chicago team, and the team’s attackers began to buzz on the attack, none more so than the Fire’s goal scorer. In the 13th minute, Koutsias cut left deep in Toluca’s net and when a Toluca defender attempted to block it, had the ball hit his body in what was initially called a handball but which was waived off after a lengthy VAR check.
Despite the non-call, the Fire felt like they were definitively in the driver’s seat, and another goal felt imminent as the match neared the half hour mark.
It was, but it wouldn’t be the Fire’s. Paulinho used the quickest of flicks of his foot to send the ball to teammate Jesús Angulo who slotted the bar low to Richey’s left, equalizing the game for the Mexican side.
On the restart, Brian Gutiérrez, already having one of his brightest games of the year, took two quick shots at Volpi, one of which was blocked while the second was a weak, low shot from distance easily handled by the Toluca netminder.
After that, Toluca seemed to regain control of the match, earning a series of corners of play in the Fire’s end. Just when it felt the Fire might be able to regroup at halftime level, Toluca struck again. This time, it would be Marcel Ruíz who tallied, but Paulinho would once again be involved, playing the initial shot that Richey saved. He couldn’t control the rebound, however, and Toluca’s midfielder sent it past the netminder, putting the hosts up 1-0.
Speaking after the match, Paiva, saying the Fire’s goal was “destabilizing” to his team, said that he wasn’t expecting the Fire to play with a back line of five players, the goal, obviously being a wake up call.
After a halftime lengthened to nearly an hour due to lightning in the area, the Fire came out energized, and looked ready to find an equalizer, with Koutsias again looking dangerous in the opening minutes of the second frame.
The closest the Fire would come was a shot from Maren Halie-Selassie who received a well-weighted pass from Mauricio Pineda. The shot landed off the post and ricocheted off Volpi, who was lying partly in his net. It wasn’t clear if the ball crossed the line before heading out, and VAR was once again called, and once again, the call wouldn’t go the Fire’s way.
Toluca soon took firm control of the game, and in the 66th minute, Richey was able to get on a low cross from Paulinho but the Fire netminder wasn’t able to control the rebound and it became a Toluca corner. Toluca’s Alexis Vega received the ball and played it in for a cross in the air to Ruíz who was left completely in the Fire’s box with a sea of players in white jerseys standing immobile, uninvolved in the play as the Toluca player completed his brace and put his team up 3-1.
In the ensuing minutes Toluca fans soon took out their phones, using cellphone flashlights swaying as if in a concert, but unfortunately, it wasn’t all that would come out, as some in the stands began using the homophobic chant, which, per tournament policy, meant that loudspeakers began playing loud, canned music for every goal kick.
Given the timing of the use of flashlights, which started just before the 70th minute in the Toluca supporters section and the subsequent chant, it altogether changed the tenor of what was a visual spectacle into something altogether more sour. Regardless, the music didn’t stop the anti-gay chant, which was still audible from the press box over the music. The audio clips, however, more likely were intended to render the sound of the chant inaudible on the broadcast. Regardless, after the storm-related delays match officials seemed to have little appetite for initiating jumping on the slow-moving escalator that is CONCACAF’s “What’s Wrong is Wrong” policy on the issue.
The Fire's Leagues Cup campaign is over, and the team has 23 days before their next match to rest, recuperate and prepare for the final nine matches of their leagues season – a luxurious length of time for a top-flight professional club when uninterrupted by an international break.
What positives can the team take? One was the performance of Georgios Koutsias, a player in a prized U22 roster slot who has now scored in two straight games, which, as his coach Frank Klopas, a former U.S. international but one of Greek birth who played in Greece professionally noted, has “had some good lucks but… needed maybe that one goal to get his confidence.” Now he’s got it, in sequential matches. Speaking to reporters after the game, Koutsias said that although his second goal in as many matches “felt good,” it is "not the same when we don’t take the result, but we need to learn from this.”
Another positive was the performance of 19-year-old Justin Reynolds in his senior debut. When asked, his coach described what he brought to the game: “he's dynamic, explosive. Like you saw, tactically, he reads the game. I think when you give him information, he's a player that takes information and he's smart, he listens. But he's dynamic, he's explosive, he's strong. He can use both feet; I had him on the left, he’s a right-footed player but he's comfortable crossing with his (left) foot.”
The last? The possibility that when the Fire next play in a little more than three weeks’ time, they’ll finally have a healthy lineup after battling significant injuries, concentrated in defense. The team has nine matches left to play in the regular season, and are currently sitting out of a playoff spot but within striking distance of one if they put together a run of good form.
Will the experience against Toluca harden the team? Can this year’s Fire team find it in themselves to finish with a stronger run down the stretch than their predecessors and end the team’s playoff drought before it ties a league record?
The team now has three weeks to sort out their response before their next test against New York City FC in the Bronx on August 24th.
