The Fire head to New York to face the city’s eponymous team in their first match since a rain-logged loss in the Leagues Cup over three weeks ago to face a team that played in that competition just last week.

Note: The Fire played NYCFC last month. For a more in-depth overview of the team’s season, tactics and squad, please view that piece here.

New York City FC

Summer Transfer Window: Moins ça change

The Pigeons have talent throughout their roster but at the same time have been missing a couple truly high-end roster pieces that would push them from playoff team to title contender, and naturally in the transfer window, they… [checks notes] sent one player away on loan and brought absolutely no one in.

The player they sent out was DP winger Talles Magno, now on loan to Corinthians. It isn’t immediately clear whether the loan opened the DP slot – smart money is on “no,” limiting the front office’s ability to bring in someone else. Magno had looked like the kind of young player you could build a team around in 2022, but the 22-year-old had just 65 minutes in 3 appearances so far this season and clearly wasn’t part of Head Coach Nick Cushing’s thinking going forward.

Fine, but the lack of movement despite a promising core of players gives fans of the team who think the team isn’t really going to push to be a true contender until their stadium opens in 2027 a lot of ammunition here.

Leagues Cup Run Showed NYCFC’s Strengths; Limits

The Pigeons made it to the Leagues Cup quarterfinals before bowing out in penalty kicks to Columbus Crew, who go into Sunday’s final as favorites to win the trophy. They got a lead just seconds into the match when Alonso Martínez, who at 25 years of age, is actually one of the older players on the roster, dispossessed the Crew who were building out of the back.

Fast, young talented player makes a big moment. This is something that NYCFC can do on a regular basis. They conceded late in the first half but not again for the remainder of the match, making it look like they might become just the second team to leave Lower.com Field with a win  over the past calendar year after FC Cincinnati did it in MLS regular season play earlier this year.

They lost in PKs, and, but even if they’d won, it would have been called an upset. The Crew out possessed the Pigeons and outshot them by 18 to six throughout the game and it generally looked like the Crew were playing to win while NYCFC was playing to draw.

During a match where the team could really have used a difference maker on offense, 20 year-old Agustín Ojeda, who has three goals in 786 minutes and has looked very dangerous, stayed on the bench. He may not be a talent on par to the Crew’s Christian Ramírez or Diego Rossi, but he is talented and he had fresh legs which can alone be a difference maker during a

There’s talent, but maybe not game-breaking talent on the bench, and it seems that Nick Cushing doesn’t really trust some of his young squad (with an average age of just 24.9 years, making them the youngest in MLS) in game changing moments.

Who Will Be in the Starting XI for New York City?

I’d be very surprised if Cushing rolled out with the same XI that he did in the later stages of the Leagues Cup, particularly in the attack. Maxi Morales was staring for the team but my bet is that Cushing starts saving the legs of the 37-year-old (who has had injury trouble) for the stretch and playoffs, giving Santi Rodríguez in the #10 spot and returning Ojeda to the XI. Hannes Wolf may also be rested in favor of Julían Fernández on the right.

Chicago Fire

Welcome Back, Backs!

Injuries are a normal part of a soccer season and few managers get to field their preferred starting XI for anything close to a full season. The Fire, though, have been particularly afflicted on their back line, particularly at the left wingback position, where multiple injuries have kept Andrew Gutman to just 517 minutes and his nominal backup Chase Gasper to just 241 minutes. Taken together, that’s meant that the Fire have had someone a natural left back for less than a third of the team’s minutes so far this campaign.

On top of that, Carlos Terán and Tobias Salquist – both of whom figured to be in heavy rotation as starting center backs – have missed significant time.

Time heals all wounds, however, and according to Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas, he’ll have his choice of players in the team’s defense with the exception of Chase Gasper, who remains injured.

Other teams have certainly had injury situations their defense as bad as the Fire’s – FC Cincinnati comes to mind, and they’re still in contention for the Supporter’s Shield – but you also can’t say that missing two or three players out of a Starting XI, and having to play players on their opposite side to fill in gaps hasn’t cost the team points one way or another.

One player that will not be in the lineup against NYCFC? Ari Lassiter, the team’s sole summer acquisition, who is out for yellow card accumulation from his time with CF Montréal.

3, 4, 5…? How Should the Fire Line Up Against New York City FC?

We’ve talked about the team’s switch to playing three center backs and whether that formation is a 3-5-2, a 5-3-2, and how much the distinction really doesn’t matter.

We’ve also talked about Klopas’s habit to mirror an opponent’s formation – playing, for example, a 4-4-2 against Inter Miami’s 4-3-3. Mirroring was in vogue a couple of years ago, but while I get the idea, I think, ultimately, it leads to weaker football. It’s important to understand an opposing team’s tactics, pressing triggers, and game model, I’m not convinced that changing formations to mirror an opponent is really a great idea. Granted, in an actual game, players move on the pitch, and a formation is just something written down on a screen (or piece of paper, if you want to get old school), but c’mon: When the Fire beat FC Cincinnati last month, Arnaud Souquet, Wyatt Omsberg and Rafael Czichos were all playing as center backs.

Switching formations means having one more player somewhere and one fewer somewhere else, and even if players have the flexibility to play in multiple spots (see: Arnaud Souquet being deputized into playing as a CB instead of a full back), often their assignments aren’t that flexible, and shifting things means creating an unintended gap somewhere. Also: What happens if both teams try to mirror the other? Could get awwwwkward. Someone is going to show up radically overdressed.

But: For this one, I hope that Frank Klopas throws that out the window and plays a 4-3-3, or some variation of it: Citi Field, like Yankee Stadium, is a pitch that’s just 110 yards long and 70 wide, 10 yards and five, respectively, short of standard, and the smallest in MLS. The smaller size is often considered NYCFC’s “12th man” – truly an irony considering how 12 men would have to be spaced out.

That means not only is there less width, but players getting back on defense have a shorter distance to track back.

Don’t play three center backs on a field that’s five-sixths the size standard. Put more midfielders on the pitch, play balls over the top, take advantage of the fact that NYCFC have been playing two-game-a-week knockout football and this is a shift mentally for them.

Those things happen, and the Fire can end up with their first-ever win in the city limits of New York.