No MLS match is easy. Away matches are harder. And so naturally after facing six of the top 10 teams based on the 2023 season’s overall table in their first seven matches of the season, the Fire face the current 2024 Supporters Shield-leading New York Red Bulls in their only away match in April for their eighth match.

The Red Bulls have managed to climb atop the standings by holding on to the familiar Red Bulls DNA but evolving the system.

New York Red Bulls

Overview

2023 Results: 11W-10D-13L, 43 pts, 8th in the Eastern Conference, 36 GF, 39 GA (-3 GD)

Key Signings: Emil Forsberg, AM

For years the Red Bull game model virtually set in stone: Press, repress, press again. Bomb the ball down the pitch, get on defenders before they have time to advance the ball themselves, make them cough up the ball and then you’ve got possession in a dangerous area with an unsettled opponent. From there, either you score, or you give your opponent the ball in the least-dangerous area of the pitch – deep in their own half. And then you win the ball back, rinse, repress, repeat. And run. The system involves a lot of running.

Tactics

The Red Bull model is simple and effective – to a point. It has made the Red Bulls a perennial playoff team in MLS. They have made the postseason 14 seasons and counting, the longest stretch in league history, but the system has also shown its limits: In those 14 playoff appearances, the Red bulls haven’t made it to an MLS Cup final (their only trip to the championship game came in 2008; they followed that up by missing the playoffs in 2009), and their most recent playoff victory came in 2018.

In fact, they’ve won just six playoff games in their current 14-year-long postseason streak. The Red Bull system works against lower-quality opponents, but has a difficult time beating organized, skilled teams. At its heart, the Red Bull system helps teams win in two ways.

First, it’s stingy defensively. Only three teams conceded fewer goals than the 39 the Red Bulls did last season, and all of those teams had better records than the Red Bulls. In fact, every team that finished below the Red Bulls in the table conceded at least 10 more goals than they did. By keeping the ball away from dangerous areas, the slightly-below-average Red Bulls team was elite defensively. Second, the system is highly effective at giving you the opportunity to punish your opponent’s mistakes, but if they don’t make any, or if you don’t have the players with the individual skill to turn opportunities into actual goals? Well, there hasn’t really been a Plan B.

Enter Sandro Schwarz as head coach. He has successfully done something hat has been long-discussed, but seldom seen: Without ditching the overall Red Bulls game model, he’s evolved it: Longer passing sequences – once verboten – are now allowed. The team doesn’t always press as high up the field, because are willing to use the skill players like new-arrival Emil Forsberg to develop through possession and beat you that way.

Make no mistake: The Red Bulls aren’t trying to mimic the 2009 Barça squad. You still aren't going to see an intricate, tiki-taka sequence 20 passes long, and the team still presses.  But pressing is now just one club in the bag, one tool in the toolbox, and Schwarz has added others.

The result – along with solid play from individual players like Lewis Morgan (who spent the vast majority of 2023 injured) and Emil Forsberg, who it’s no exaggeration to say may be the most skilled player at RBNY since Thierry Henry left a decade ago – has been a team that has just one loss this season alongside impressive victories over teams like FC Cincinnati and Inter Miami.

Starting XI

The Red Bulls have been playing out of a nominal 4-4-2, though in practice it works more like a 4-2-2-2 (or, depending on how you view wingbacks, even a 2-2-2-2-2, but at some point you might as well just say “it’s a goalie and 10 players out there”).

The wingbacks are expected to be able to join the attack while getting back on defense (see above about "a lot of running"). It’s a role that suits John Tolkin well who has grown into a prime example of the kind of player that thrives in the role, and he should start on the left. On the right side, expect Dylan Nealis to start, with his older brother Sean (also Nealis, to be clear) being paired with Andrés Reyes to complete the back four.

Ahead of the back line are two central defensive midfielders whose job is relatively similar to the double pivot the Fire play (though with more running – this is a theme here). Frankie Amaya made MLS headlines last week after scoring against his former team, FC Cincinnati – he joined the team ahead of their inaugural MLS season and spent two years with them (both of which were Wooden Spoon winners for Cincinnati) before asking, publicly, to leave the team that had moved in and established residency at the basement of MLS standings. He scored against his former team last week, as his every move was booed.

His likely partner in the defensive midfield Peter Stroud may not have been gaining that much attention so far, but he likely will as the season goes on. The 21 year old Red Bulls homegrown has slowly made the case that he should be a regular fixture in Schwarz’s starting XI with strong play. He initially won the job because of injury, but is keeping it because of performance on the pitch.

Ahead of them are two attacking midfielders, that depending on game state either play like wingers or like dual #10s in a more central role. Emil Forsberg will be one. The other has been, frankly, up for grabs somewhat. Before the season started, I’d have had Lewis Morgan in the role (more on him in a second), but since he’s otherwise occupied, there’s been some rotation at that position. Wikelman Carmona, the 21 year-old Venezuelan, has seemed to be in favor of lae, but it wouldn’t be surprising if this is one of the spots where Schwarz continues to rotate.

Up top, there’s nominally two forwards, both of whom are there to score goals. So far this season, Dante Vanzier, who was brought in to score goals, has been providing assists (he leads the league in that statistic), while Lewis Morgan was nominally going to be playing as more of an attacking midfielder, is tied for the league lead in goals.

That’s surprising, since if you’d asked me before the season started, I would have said that the Red Bulls squad had a lot of Red Bulls-y players but still needed a high-end finisher, but, well, here we are. You can't argue with results. Schwarz certainly isn't.

Chicago Fire

Having played seven matches into the season, the shift in the Fire’s tactical model is becoming clearer. It’s subtle, and the foundation is largely the same. The team will still continue to play mostly out of a 4-2-3-1, but last year they seemed to almost universally defend out of a mid-block, allowing opponents to have possession in their own end and trying to win the ball back in in the midfield.

They still do that, but they also have begun to press more, and higher up the pitch, for at least parts of games. The net result is that while the team doesn’t really play much like the Red Bulls – there is far less pressing – they’re a bit more “Red Bull-like” than they were a year ago, while the Red Bulls are themselves being a bit less “Red Bull-like.”

All this is a way of saying that even though the teams play different styles, it’s becoming more “early afternoon to dusk” rather than “night and day,” the Fire roster really doesn’t line up badly against the Red Bulls.

Even though the New York team isn’t purely playing a high-pressing game anymore, though, they still very much do have that club in their bag, and the Fire will have to prepare for it.

Brian Gutiérrez’s goal against Houston last week is a perfect example of the kind of play that can beat a high press. It’s worth going through step-by-step to show why it worked.

Houston GK Steve Clark plays the ball to Franco Escobar who plays a long ball deep into the Fire’s end, covering about half the pitch in just two passes. This is something the Red Bulls will do repeatedly, because there’s a chance a New York player wins the ball, and if not, the team believes they’ve got a decent chance of recovering the ball before it comes back the other way.

In this case, Tobias Salquist uses his height to win the ball back, and sends the ball to Xherdan Shaqiri after just three touches – before any Dynamo players have a chance to pressure him on the ball. Shaqiri receives the ball, takes one more touch to play the ball into a pocket of space with four Houston midfielders bearing down on him, and passes the ball to Gutiérrez with the next touch.

When Gutiérrez receives the ball, Houston’s entire midfield and attack is well behind the play. His only touch sends the ball above Clark and into the net just before Griffin Dorsey closes down on him.

If any of that didn’t happen – really, if any of the Fire players had taken just one extra touch in that sequence, the play is likely nothing. (Hugo Cuypers and Maren Haile-Selassie were bearing down on the right channel and might have become pass options or been able to get a cross off, and Fabian Herbers was going at full tilt to the left, but that play happens a dozen times a match and does nothing for the Fire.)

Conversely, the goal the Fire conceded – a careless pass in the back resulting in a turnover – is exactly what the Fire need to avoid, completely, for all 90 minutes if they want a result against the Red Bulls.

How Will the Fire Line Up Against New York?

He Won’t Be Right Back

Since Andrew Gutman’s injury just a few minutes into the Chicago Fire academy product’s homecoming, and the Fire have been without their first-choice starter at left back. Since Chase Gasper went down with an eerily similar injury, leaving the Fire without a natural left back in the squad.

After experimenting with Jonathan Dean in that position, where he did not look comfortable, Klopas put in Allan Arigoni on the left against Houston, and, per his coach’s words following the match, looked “excellent” playing in the inverted role. It makes sense – although it isn’t his natural position, he has played on the left in Lugano and inverted wingers are very much a thing (even if inverted wingbacks, not as much).

The hope had been that Gutman would be ready to return, but as of the Fire’s midweek press conference, Gutman had still been training on his own, though he has progressed to doing some on-ball activities in training.

The question, then, is who starts at right back if Arigoni is on the left. Arnaud Souquet got his first Fire minutes of 2024 against Houston, but against the speedy Red Bulls team, my bet is that Jonathan Dean’s tenacity earns him the spot.

Make it two in a row?

Shaqiri’s play to Gutiérrez reminded Fire fans of the kinds of moves the Swiss star is capable of, but as Matt Doyle pointed out earlier this week on ExtraTime, Fire fans haven’t seen that version of Shaqiri show up two games in a row in a Fire uniform in his entire tenure in Chicago. Let’s see if that changes this week.

Gutiérrez’s play last week almost certainly is enough to propel him back into the XI, meaning Mueller will once again be an option off the bench.

Continuity and Communication

On the left side, Maren Haile-Selassie will likely get the start again, but he frankly has had two fairly anonymous games after a strong start to the season. That may be in part because he didn’t have a familiar partner behind him with Souquet earning his first minutes.

Similarly, the Fire can’t afford communication miscues out of the defensive midfield corps. Fabian Herbers strong start to the season has also cooled off, and it was his play that lead to Houston’s only goal last week. Still, his speed and verticality make him the better choice to join Kellyn Acosta in the midfield against the Red Bulls.

Communication was also an issue with the center back pairing: Arguably, if Salquist and Czichos had been able to work things out, one of them could have stepped in and prevented Aliyu from taking the shot that resulted in Houston’s goal. Salquist had a decent game, but Carlos Terán is available again and may well get the nod.

The Red Bulls team that the Fire will face on Wednesday