The Fire are set to host Toronto FC at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview. The last time these two teams met, the Fire walked away with a 4-1 victory and their first road win of the season.

With the Fire's playoff hopes dim but not extinguished and Toronto's strong start having been almost undone by losses in the second half of the season, both teams desperately need three points out of this one.

Note: For a more general overview of Toronto’s tactics and style of play, check out our overview from when the Fire played them in June.

Toronto

Head On Down

About a month after the Fire beat Toronto in June, the team announced that Bill Manning, the team’s president since 2015, would be leaving the organization. When Manning came in, the organization had just made their first postseason appearance after missing every year since entering the league in 2007. Toronto had been a laughingstock, but soon, had won MLS Cup on the backs of ambitious spending from Toronto, bringing in a number of top U.S. Men’s National Team players.

A second trip to MLS Cup and a 2nd place the East in 2020 cemented the team’s role as a team to be talked about, but then the team hit hard times, finishing in 2nd last or last palace in the conference every year since, and earning a Wooden Spoon for the league’s worst overall record, despite continuing to spend at a high level, including on Lorenzo Insigne.

Although he was technically team president and had a technical staff under him, Manning was the face of the front office. During an interview, he said that he brought in Insigne, at the time the highest-earner in MLS history (since eclipsed by Lionel Messi) after noting the popularity of the Azzurri in the 2020 Euros and looking on Transfermarkt for Italian national team players with contracts set to end.

Insigne is on the list of biggest designated player busts in history. On top of that, he was responsible for giving a number of players very highly paid deals at very long-terms: Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradly and Adama Diomande remained under contract to MLS on deals exceeding $600,000 per year as of April; all of which were deals signed under Manning.

Although Jason Hernandez is the team’s General Manager, so far his efforts have been devoted to fixing the team’s salary cap quagmire, and Bill Manning hasn’t been replaced.

I don’t know if going from the Spoon to a playoff bubble team is considered a successful season or Toronto FC’s Head Coach John Herdman, but with Manning out and Hernandez preoccupied, I suspect no one in Toronto’s offices is really asking that question.

Toronto’s Marathon and Sprint to Finish the Year

The team flew from Toronto to British Columbia for the Canadian Championship against the Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday, then flew back to Toronto before heading to Chicago.

It’s been a long week for Toronto with lots of miles. Still, out of every team that is in the postseason, Toronto’s post seems the most precarious given the team’s poor form in the second half of MLS season and Herdman likely knows that he’s got precious little margin for error.

With a continental spot on the line, the team played its starters against the Whitecaps and all three of Toronto’s remaining games happen in the next week, as the team is the odd one out in the 29 team league on Decision Day.

After the Fire, they face the New York Red Bulls midweek and Inter Miami next Saturday, both at home. Herdman’s squad has to earn all the points they can by October 5th and hope that it’s enough to secure their spot in the postseason, with teams like Atlanta United, CF Montréal and even Nashville and D.C. United chomping at their heels.

Toronto also played midweek last week in MLS, losing 2-0 to the Crew, and the Saturday before that, beating Austin 2-1 at home in the team’s most recent victory. Overall, that’s seven games over the course of three weeks. A lot, for any squad, but especially one like Toronto: Although the team’s average of 28.1 years is about middle-of-the-pack for MLS, the squad consists largely of veterans over 30 or young players earlier in their career: Exactly the kind of players you don’t want to overload with minutes in a short span.

Toronto FC Starting Lineup Prediction

Normally, this would be an ideal match to rotate, but you’d have to think that Herdman knows that the best chance for three points his squad has this season is against the Fire, the one team they face not in a playoff spot, rather than against New York’s stingy defense or Miami’s high-octane attack.

My bet is that Herdman goes mostly with a choice XI to the extent that his players are ready to play, hoping to put the game away early and sub players off as quickly as possible.

Fire midfielder Gastón Giménez expects Toronto’s starters to be ready, saying Toronto’s stars like Bernardeschi “are players that are used to playing games like this every three days. They really are players that are high-quality, high-class players and they are used to playing every three days games like this at this level. I don't think that's going to be a problem for them… it's pretty simple, pretty easy for them to play at this high level.”

Chicago Fire

What’s the game plan against Toronto?

Turning this one over to Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas:

“If (Lorezno) Insigne plays, obviously they have the national team players back with (Jonathan) Osorio. So, they are a good team. They want to move the ball around. They are a possession team. And obviously in transition moments, where they can isolate Bernardeschi, they have some quality players in moments where they can have an impact in 1v1 situations and players that can impact the game in moments where you don't expect them to. They have that kind of quality. We played them the first game. Obviously the first half was a little bit slow for us, and then, you know, I think that we had some goals in key moments, and I think that's the key thing, I think, in that matchup. We were able to control the game. We were in good possession, and we picked our moments and then we finished our chances."

That seems like a good plan, as far as it goes.

Chicago Fire Starting XI and Formation Prediction

So first the bad news: It looks like Andrew Gutman and Carlos Terán will not be ready to play, though both are listed as questionable. In positive news, Hugo Cuypers – newly a father – and Rafael Czichos look like they’re available.

Against Toronto’s 3-5-2 or 3-4-3, Frank Klopas will likely play a similar formation. Koutsias has been playing well lately, and we haven’t seen Koutsias and Cuypers start together since early May. Given Koutsias’s improved play of late, it would be great to see the Fire’s two best forwards play at the same time. Brian Gutiérrez has also been playing well, even if he hasn’t sparked too much offensive production; playing out of a 3-4-3 may suit him well, allowing him to play centrally when the left wingback joins the attack and out wide as a winger at other times.

And that left wingback? It could be Justin Reynolds, in his first-ever start with the first team, as Klopas said “not to be surprised” if we saw him in the XI this week.

The last time the Fire played Toronto, they dominated. Against a tired team, can they do so again?