Update: It has been confirmed that Maren Haile-Selassie is out for the match with an injury. The post has been updated to reflect this.

The Fire host Real Salt Lake in the first test of a three game homestand that – not to be dramatic – is crucial if they want to change the direction and tenor of their season going forward.

Real Salt Lake

Overview

2023 Results: 14W-8D-12L, 50 pts, 5th in the Western Conference, 48 GF, 50 GA (-2 GD)

Key Signings: Fidel Barrajas (AM), Matt Crooks (AM), Alexandros Katranis (LB)

Now in their fourth season under Head Coach Pablo Mastreoni, Real Salt Lake have become one of the MLS teams that consistently punches above their weight, if we’re measuring weight by salary budget. They’ve made the playoffs five of the past six seasons (only missing out in the COVID-shortened 2020 campaign), going as far as the Western Conference finals in 2021, the year that Mastreoni took over as interim midway through the season, despite having one of the smallest roster outlays in the league season after season.

Tactics

I’ve watched a fair bit of Real Salt Lake’s soccer over the past few seasons, for a variety of reasons – the games were often on late enough where you could catch the second half after Fire games, they’ve been a team prone to interesting second halves, and generally were just fun to watch as a neutral. If you’d watched every minute of their season in 2023, you’d have seen the ball in the back of the net 98 times. Only 7 teams had more goals for and against in the league, and RSL’s goal differential when all was said and done was -2.

Not every game was close – they lost four in a row early last season, scoring once while allowing 12 goals in those 4 matches – but again, for a neutral, that can be part of the fun. You might see a blow out, you might see them getting blown out, or it might be a nailbiter. If you wanted me to tell you why they were a team worth watching if you were looking for some light soccer with real MLS After Dark potential, I’d have told you they had a striker who could be a real difference maker in Chicho Arango and two young, talented, high-ceiling players in American Digo Luna and Colombian Andrés Gómez, both of who are fun to watch.

What I couldn’t really tell you is what the team’s exact tactical strategy is. They typically play out of a mid-block - or at least I think they do.  In possession last year, they liked to play balls vertically and kill you with quick chances off counters - something their talented, young attacking core was more than capable of, but, honestly? I don’t think that’s what i’d have told you if you’d asked me just a year before.

Maybe it’s tactical flexibility? Maybe Mastreoni is, despite the general good performance of his RSL teams, just one more of the ho-hum MLS managers who happens to have an above-average amount of talent in his roster?

I honestly don’t know. But one thing they did do last year - almost exclusively - was play out of a 4-4-2.

Starting XI

And so of course this year, that’s the one thing they haven’t done, with Mastreoni instead opting to have his team play out of a 4-2-3-1 almost exclusively.

That might be because even though Mastreoni stayed on as head coach, the rest of the coaching staff was dismissed – and the way it was presented, it certainly seems like the choice to replace the assistant coaches was the front office’s choice, not Mastreoni’s. Same head coach, new staff under him, and new ideas.

One thing that hasn’t really changed: A lot of the lineup. Chicho Arango is still the star of the show, playing as the sole striker this year, generally supported by Diego Luna on the left wing and Andrés Gómez on the right. Luna leads the team in assists but it’s somewhat misleading , and the limitations in his game have shown up more this year with the team playing out of a 4-2-3-1 instead of a 4-4-2, since he’s being asked to come and step into the halfspaces more and, well, he’s struggled.

It might be an issue that the #10 that RSL went and acquired in the offseason, Matt Crooks, has himself not adapted that well to MLS since joining the team just before the start of the season. It might be an issue of time, or it might be that a 30 year-old midfielder who’s spent his career in the lower leagues in England – the last four seasons in the championship, but most of the rest divided between League Two and League One, and who’s only started about half of Middlesbrough’s games over the past couple seasons – isn’t the ideal partner between two fast, young wingers and one of the league’s more dynamic strikers. Regardless, he’s the #10 that they’ve got.

Behind him, Braian Ojeda and Pablo Ruiz are Mastreoni’s best options in the defensive midfield, but Ruiz has been out with an injury, likely and so far, it looks like the solution has been to push Ojeda up to the more advanced #8 role and bring in Emeka Eneli to play as the #6 behind, though Nelson Palacio is also an option at that position.

One major addition ahead of GK Zac MacMath is the addition of Alexandros Katranis at left back, helping anchor an otherwise young back line featuring Andrew Brody on the right, with Brayan Vera and Justen Glad in the middle.

Chicago Fire

First the good: The Fire managed a point against the team that had the most of them when they kicked off in the New York Red Bulls.

Now the bad: They only got one point via a 0-0 draw despite playing more than half the game up a man. It gave the team their first clean sheet of the season, but also meant that the team’s sole goal in open play in their past three matches came when Brain Gutiérrez chipped the ball over Dynamo goalkeeper Steve Clark.

When asked about it at the midweek press conference, Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas said that to solve that, the team needed to get better at penetrating lines, “play at a high tempo and get a lot more crosses … get more numbers, get more dangerous, our delivery, our final pass and our numbers in the box have to increase.”

That’s all fair, but if you read that and are left thinking that the gaffer said the what but not the how, well, you’re not alone.

Where’s Guti?

If the Fire are lacking a final pass into the box, then you’d think maybe having a talented attacking midfielder, maybe someone considered a US Men’s National Team prospect – I don’t know, spitballing here, but a Brian Gutiérrez type – might be useful.

Klopas was also about keeping Gutiérrez out of the starting lineup for a second week in a row against the Red Bulls, despite his impactful performance off the bench where he scored the game winner. After the Dynamo game, Klopas talked about the need to manage minutes, citing Guti’s youth and the need to combat mental and physical fatigue.

After Guti was kept out of the XI against the Red Bulls despite the strong performance the week before, Klopas said “I think it’s just form with him,” then talked about his sharpness, physically and mentally, while also citing his youth and the need for recovery from mental and physical fatigue, and truthfully, his performance after subbing on during the 60th minute last week didn’t really cover him in glory.

Based on that performance and those remarks, it sounds like we’re unlikely to see Gutiérrez on the pitch at kickoff. Now, Klopas is canny enough to use the press conference to mislead opposing coaches, but this feels genuine. Based on what he’s said, it seems that Guti may be a man off the bench again against Real Salt Lake, unless…

Maren Down

Maren Haile-Selassie appeared to go down with a calf injury in the second half against Real Salt Lake. Update: It's been confirmed that he's out. This section has been updated. With him unavailable, that may be what it takes to put Guti back in the starting lineup.

Fabian Herbers is the other option in that position, but that would involve moving him from the double pivot and starting Gastón Giménez in that spot instead. Giménez had a decent game in his last start against Atlanta (and he was one of the only ones we can say that about), but returned to the bench for the past two matches.

If Klopas wants to preserve the double pivot, one option is to give Guti the start in the #10 role centrally, and have Xherdan Shaqiri start to his right, putting him in a role closer to the one he plays with the Swiss National Team – though I think that’s unlikely to be the route that Klopas takes on Saturday; instead, it's more likely that we'll see Giménez pulled into the starting lineup and Fabi pushed into the spot vacated by the injured Maren Haile-Selassie.

Gut News/Bad News on the Back Line

Andrew Gutman’s first team Fire debut was cut tragically short seconds into the game against Philadelphia in late February, and it’s been a waiting game to see when he’d return. The need for Gutman became even more critical when Chase Gasper went down with a similar injury, leaving the team without a natural left back.

Good news: Klopas said that Gutman has been integrating with the team and that he may well be available for Saturday. I somewhat doubt that he throws Gutman into the starting lineup, though it’s possible that he may be a planned substitution, bringing off Arnaud Soquet at right back and having Allan Arigoni shift to the right.

Bad news: Tobias Salquist is in concussion protocol after being elbowed to the head last week, leaving the Fire short a center back. That pushes Carlos Terán back into the starting lineup, with Omsberg as the only natural center back option on the bench (it’s also a spot Arigoni has played in the past).

Who Will Be in the Fire’s Starting XI against Real Salt Lake?

It’s possible that we see Gutiérrez return to the XI, but likely Klopas will stick mostly with the lineup that started against the Red Bulls, minus necessary changes. That'S Salquist and Haile-Selassie.

Klopas has been conservative with reintegrating players to the lineup, meaning that even if Gutman is available, he likely will come on as a planned sub, and if he does, could help provide an extra attacking element while providing additional defensive stability, while allowing Arigoni to do the same from his natural side on the right.

Mathematically, five points out of the next three games puts the Fire back on the trajectory for the final wildcard spot, but that ignores the fact that all three games are at home. With that in mind, in a league where road wins are hard to come by, the Fire need to aim for at least seven points in the homestand – meaning they need a result in every game, and can only drop points in one match over a stretch that includes a visit from high-octane Atlanta. This game is as close to a must-win as the ninth match of a season can be.