The Fire won a hard-fought, come-from behind battle against the Philadelphia Union on Wednesday, in a match where the team gave hints about the next steps in its tactical evolution.

On Sunday, they face a San Jose Earthquakes side that’s on the ropes, with just three wins and two draws on the season alongside a league-leading sixteen losses. After an embarrassing 6-2 defeat at the hands of Los Angeles FC on June 22nd, the team dismissed head coach Luchi Gonzalez midway through his second season, naming longtime assistant Ian Russell as interim manager for the second time in his career.

The results haven’t picked up, and unless they do soon, the Quakes are on track for a historically bad season.

San Jose

Overview

Before the 2023 season, San Jose brought in former FC Dallas head coach Luchi Gonzalez, who set the team up to play possession-based soccer, using the ball and cutting through opposition lines with crisp, thoughtful passes creating a controlled entry into the final third, using positional play to give attacking players opportunities to score. It’s similar to how Gonzalez wanted his teams to play in Dallas.

They didn’t want to be a smash-and-grab transition team, but eventually they became that when injuries to key pieces inhibited Gonzalez featuring anything close to his preferred XI. The pragmatism paid off, and despite being one of the lower-spending teams in the league, the Quakes made it to the postseason, sneaking into 9th place of the expanded playoff field.

In the offseason, they brought in Amahl Pellegrino to fortify the attack. Cristian Espinoza had a career season in San Jose and it looked like he might be able to pick up where he left off, and there was genuine hope that Gonzalez would build on what he started.

It wasn’t to be, and instead, it’s been an absolute disaster: San Jose have just 11 points through 21 matches and a negative 27 goal differential, by far the worst in the league.

What’s gone wrong in San Jose?

Basically nothing has gone according to plan in San Jose.

One of the brightest spots in San Jose in 2023 was the play of Daniel, the goalkeeper who had the best underlying numbers of any starter in the league on a per-90 basis. A hot goalkeeper can paper over any number of faults, and Daniel certainly did that for the Quakes. Injuries limited him to 22 matches, but the thought was a healthy Daniel could pull the team higher in the standings.

It wasn’t to be. After just four games, Daniel had to have hamstring surgery and hasn’t played since mid-March. William Yarbrough has stepped in but not really stepped up, and he’s statistically been a significantly below-average shot stopper. That poses a real problem for the Quakes, since their defense has been porous enough that they’ve also allowed 120 shots on target – third most in the league.

The attack also regressed, and Cristian Espinoa, who had 26 goal contributions (13G, 13A) in 2023 has fallen off his pace – he’s still creating for others (10 assists on the season), but he’s not really scoring, with just 3 goals on the year.

While you can’t exactly blame a team for firing a coach in pole position to win the Wooden Spoon, before his departure, Gonzalez was practical. The play-with-possession style was tossed in favor of a press-and-quick counter system; as it stands, the Quakes have had just 44% of the ball, 2nd-to-last in the league behind the New York Red Bulls. That’s the right move – it should raise the team’s floor – but it just hasn’t been enough.

Since Gonzalez was fired and Ian Russell was promoted to interim head coach, the style has been mostly the same and the results have been identical.

Who Will Be in the Starting XI for San Jose?

So far, Ian Russell has kept the team playing out of a 4-2-3-1 that he inherited from his predecessor, with a style very similar to the template that Ezra Hendrickson employed with the Fire and which the team used for the first half of this season.

The defensive midfield duo of Jackson Yueill and Niko Tsakiris are both decent, but both have underperformed on the year.  Hernán López Muñoz has not looked convincing as a No. 10 central attacking midfielder, but he’s likely to start there anyways. The wingers – Amahl Pellegrino and Cristian Espinoza – both are talented but have been underperforming. Jeremy Ebobisse is a decent-though-not-top-end striker, and the defense playing ahead of Yarbrough has been pedestrian all season.

Frankly, there isn’t a lot more to say than that. The team plays a fairly basic system these days, and they haven’t been executing it well.

Chicago Fire

We Have To Quit Meeting Like This

Full credit to the Fire pulling off a come-from-behind win against a good (though underperforming) Philadelphia team. For the second time this season, the Fire scored three goals after the 80th minute – something the team hadn’t done since 2001. That’s impressive, but not sustainable, and Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas knows it, saying after the win “I mean, obviously, yeah, incredible game, but I don't think – I mean, it's great when it goes your way, but

I think the one with Montréal was enough; I don't know how many more we can keep doing this.”

Wins are great; it’s a lot better to get them when you don’t go down by multiple goals first.

The Fire’s penalty kick streak has continued, and Chris Brady has now had to face down four shots from the spot in the past three matches. This time, it was Brady who was responsible but as with two of the previous three penalties, the Fire were caught trying to play rugby in the box. The ball slipped through his hands at the edge of the box as Nathan Harriel was bearing down, and instead of scrambling for the ball, Brady decided to bear hug Harriel.

Jonathan Dean was coming back and likely would’ve beaten Harriel to the ball. It’s possible Brady didn’t see him, but it’s also possible that he didn’t trust his teammate with the clearance. Either way, Brady’s heat-of-the-moment decision cost the team.

Evolving the Fire’s System

Following the match against Philadelphia, Klopas said that the team switched formations in the second half, describing it as a “back four when we took Jonathan Dean out and we put Chris Mueller out wide,” but also described the aims of the shift, saying that Brian Gutiérrez was played as a “[No.] 10 or second forward.”  He later said that the team was “defending in a 4-4-2,” which makes a lot more sense.

The team kept all three center backs on the pitch the entire game, and when Allan Arigoni was subbed off in the 65th minute, the team really only had three players in total who could credibly be called defenders on the pitch. With the ball, it felt like the team moved to a 3-4-3 in the second half, with Gutiérrez higher up than he had been previously.

One thing is clear: Maren Haile-Selassie has been thriving in the new system, as he heads to San Jose on a four game scoring streak. So has Hugo Cuypers, who has six goals in the past six matches.

A bit more quietly, Gutiérrez has also been playing very well. He hasn’t featured in the box score as much as Haile-Selassie or Cuypers (though he was credited with an assist against the Union; his third on the year), he has been active in creating offense for the Fire. I’m not convinced that his best position will ultimately turn out to be in a No. 10 central attacking role – I think he may work best as a pass-before-the-pass guy, particularly if he wants to gain the attention of the United States (or Mexico) National Team, but he has been playing well and I don’t think we’re close to seeing his ceiling.

Who Will Be in the Starting XI vs. San Jose?

We are getting close to seeing some players return for the Fire. To be clear: Xherdan Shaqiri’s Switzerland team dropped out of Euros thanks to a loss to England in penalty kicks, but he will not be in California for the match. When – and frankly whether – he returns to the Fire is still an open question.

Still, I wouldn’t be surprised for Tobaias Salquist to see his first minutes since April against San Jose, but Frank Klopas has been conservative with bringing players back from injury, and so I think he may come on in relief of someone, probably Wyatt Omsberg. We may also see Federico Navarro on the bench, and we’re nearing the return of the Fire’s two left backs, Andrew Gutman and Chase Gasper, but I wouldn’t expect them in the matchday lineup.

At kickoff, I’d expect the Fire to stay in the 3-5-2 or 5-3-2 system that we’ve come to expect from them, but I’dbe surprised if Jonathan Dean was in the XI. He hasn’t performed well in recent matches. That isn’t his fault: Teams have realized that they can attack down their right flank, facing Dean, and find time and space. There are real limitations to his game, and when he starts, teams have figured out how to exploit them.

Instead, I think Klopas tipped his hand on Wednesday: Chris Mueller, a halftime sub, will start. It wouldn’t surprise me for him to take Arigoni’s place on the right, with Arigoni playing on the left. Frankly, I’m surprised we’ve seen Dean starting so consistently on the left, his weak side, when Arigoni is by far the more ambipedal of the two players. My assumption is that he thinks what the team potentially gains with having Arigoni on his stronger side is greater than what the team gives up on the other end.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Mauricio Pineda started in lieu of Arnaud Souquet, out of an interest to manage minutes, but I still think that Souquet likely stays in the XI. Ditto for Kellyn Acosta, who might be replaced by Gastón Giménez – fresh off his first goal of the season – because Acosta played the lion’s share of the match on Wednesday.

Giménez played well. Acosta has been playing well. Fabian Herbers has been playing well. There’s certainly still some weak spots in the armor, but this is still a team that should expect they can leave PayPal park with three points, which would put them level with Atlanta and Toronto on points for the 9th and final postseason spot in the Eastern Conference (though behind on tiebreakers).