Real Colors: Chicago Fire vs Real Salt Lake Match 9 Preview

The Fire return home as they kick off a crucial three game homestand against Real Salt Lake, an organized opponent that is currently sitting in fourth place in the Western Conference, just three points off of the league’s leaders.

Series History

All time: 8W-9D-7LLast Match: October 23, 2021: Fire 1-0 Real Salt Lake at Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill.

Recent Form

Real Salt Lake

Record: 3W-3D-2L,12 pts, 11 GF, 8 GA (+3 GD)

After starting their season with a 2-0 loss away against Inter Miami (the phrase “sacrificial lamb” was used in some quarters), Salt Lake have had just one additional loss, at home against Colorado on March 9. They’ve beaten LAFC 3-0, St. Louis 3-1 (and played them to a 1-1 draw in the other reverse fixture) , and topped an impressive Vancouver team 2-1. They managed to play Columbus, one of the league’s better team’s offensively, to a 0-0 draw at home last week.

The 2024 edition of this squad has played well defensively, having conceded just 8 goals this season (only one more than the league leaders), but has plenty of skill in the attack including Chico Arango, who won MLS Cup with LAFC, and Diego Luna, one of the league’s more promising young talents.

Fire

Record: 2W-3D-3L, 9 pts, 11 GF, 14 GA, -3 GD

The Fire played a surging New York Red Bulls team, who were on top of the Supporters Shield standings at the start of the matchday, to a 0-0 draw in Harrison, New Jersey.

If you’d offered most Fire fans an away point against the Red Bulls before the match, they’d gladly have taken it – Alex Calabrese, our Editor-in-Chief, started his Red Bulls score prediction with “This is grim,” before going on to predict a 4-0 defeat for the Fire. Jiggly Carollo said “The Fire are cooked” before predicting a 4-1 defeat.

Yet the point ultimately felt unsatisfying because it came when the Fire played most of the match up a man, starting with a free kick from a dangerous location in the waning minutes of the first half courtesy of a careless Red Bulls red card. To preserve the clean sheet early, Brady had to stand on his head, and to preserve it late, the team needed help from the woodwork not just once, but twice in a span of seconds. And despite their numerical advantage, the Fire were unable to get many real chances in the second half, making the team’s previous result – a victory over Houston courtesy of a penalty goal and brilliant pass from Xherdan Shaqiri – seem like it happened years ago rather than a week prior.

The Storyline

The Fire’s match against RSL marks the quarter-way point for the MLS season, and in a lot of ways the Fire are still trying to show – to themselves, to fans, to the league – what their true identity is.

Early on, it felt like the team was playing better than the 2023 squad. Even when results didn’t go their way, they managed to square off well against top teams in the league: The reigning MLS Cup Champion Columbus Crew only managed a victory over the Fire because of a goal a full 10 minutes into second half stoppage time. They played the Philadelphia Union, who have more points than any other team in the league over the past few seasons, to a 2-2 draw away, and they brought the game to Supporters Shield-holding FC Cincinnati, who managed a 2-1 victory because of brief, individual lapses by the Fire.

Since then, the eye test says the quality has faded, even when results have improved: They needed a gutsy Acosta shot – and an assist from the wind – to get the game winner against CF Montréal in their first victory of the season. It took a penalty and a moment of brilliance to get the team’s second.

Still, outside of the match against Atlanta, the team really hasn’t been outplayed – nor have they been able to string together enough results to suggest that this year’s results will be noticeably different than 2023. Or 2022. Or 2021. And so on.

Case in point: The Fire are currently averaging 1.13 points per game, more or less dead-on with the 1.18 they averaged in 2023, and at their current pace are right on trend to get 11 points in their first 10 matches – a record which lead the team to part ways with Ezra Hendrickson.

The adage in MLS is that you haven’t lost until you’ve lost at home. Well, the Fire have done that, but only once, and against one of the strongest teams in the league. That’s what makes the three game homestand that starts with this match so critical for the Fire.

If they can get wins and not stretches of good play, if they can turn strong performances into actual points on the table (and get the occasional victory because of moments of individual brilliance), they can finally break out of the trajectory that it feels like the team has been stuck in for far too long.

The end of the stretch marks the one-third mark of the regular season. To be on a trajectory that will likely see the team into the postseason, they need at a bare minimum a win and two draws out of the three game homestand. To really break the curve, turn heads, both around the league and around Chicago they need to aim for all nine points on offer from this stretch.

A failure to start with a win against Real Salt Lake gives the team very little margin for error if they want to enter the middle third of the season looking like a team headed for the postseason.

Salt Lake Players To Watch

Chicho Arango: Arango’s six goals and four assists put him in the lead for the MLS Golden Boot race, with one more assist to his name than credit than Miami’s Luis Suárez. How dangerous can Arango be? Salt Lake had been conceded in the 3rd minute against St. Louis at the end of March and had been unable to break through all game until Arango scored in the 70th minute. By the time the final whistle blew, he’d scored a hat trick (one of which was off a penalty). Arango, who won MLS Cup and the Supporters Shield with LAFC alongside Kellyn Acosta in 2022, had eight goal contributions in just 764 minutes after returning to MLS from Liga MX midway through last season, and is on pace this year to exceed the 21 contributions he had during LAFC’s trophy winning campaign in 2022.

Andrés Gómez: Maybe because of his USMNT connections, Diego Luna is often considered the stand out young star on Real Salt Lake's roster but in 2024, Gómez has been the player to watch. Now in his second MLS season, the 21-year-old Colombian attacking midfielder already beaten his 2023 goal tally (with two) and has added three assists. He's capable of sudden bursts of speed and his dribbling is elite, making him a handful for opposing defenses. Arango may score the goals on plays like this, but look at the work Gómez does beating the defender and delivering a cross in to Arango to set up the goal. Playing primarily on the right wing, whoever the Fire have at left back (Frank Klopas has hinted that Gutman may be ready) will have their work cut out for them.

Fire Keys to Victory

• Goal’s that way, lads: One of my formative experiences with the sport involves a lower league match in England and a fan in the stands who, at every back pass, would emphatically yell things along the lines of “THE GOAL WE SCORE IN’S THAT WAY, LADS! YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY! HOOF IT FORWARD!” Back passes can be a useful tool in building out an attack, but there’s a limit. Last match, the Fire – and Xherdan Shaqiri, tasked with being a creative attacking force relied on that tool far too much, and the “building out an attack thing” never really happened. “Hoof it forward, lads!” may not exactly be an effective strategy, but then again, neither was whatever the Fire had going on despite playing up a man most of last match. The Fire need to present more opportunities to advance the ball, rather than hoping that a rinse-repeat cycle of back passes to the midfield to the back line to the midfield will somehow yield a breakthrough. And on that note:
• Be way more aggressive in the final third: I’m turning this one over to Fire Head Coach Frank Klopas. When I asked him in a midweek presser what the team needs to do to get more goals through open play, he said “We need to be way more aggressive in the final third. We have a tendency once we’re able to penetrate and break lines then our ability to accelerate the game, our ability to get service in the box, more numbers in the box, it’s been a big focus…. Our delivery, our final pass and our numbers in the box have to increase.” That is the key not only to unlocking Cuypers, but in giving other attacking pieces more dangerous looks on goal.

Panel Predictions

Alex Calabrese

The Fire have been poor ever since their lucky 4-3 win over Montréal. I don't see that changing.

Prediction: Fire 0-2 Salt Lake

Jiggly Carollo

"But you are the only exception" The Fire still have proven nothing when it comes to their actual desire to win a game. They just aren't a team that wins. Except, they always seem to find a dub against the most random teams. And Real Salt Lake is that kind of team. RSL doesn't really have much going for them either. So, despite all previous evidence this season, the Fire will win.

Prediction: Fire 2-1 Salt Lake

Christian Hirschboeck

Chicho Arango is as potent as ever, and Hugo Cuypers is due for a goal or two. Both teams are hungry for three points after 0-0 draws last weekend, but I think that will drive them into individual mistakes granting both previously mentioned forwards hand-delivered goals on a platter, with a final score of 2-2.

Prediction: Fire 2-2 Salt Lake

Tim Hotze

There is no reason the Fire can’t win at home. None.

Prediction: Fire 2-1 Salt Lake

Matt Shabelman

Prediction: Fire 2-1 Salt Lake

Match Information and How to Watch

Date and Time: Saturday, April 20, 2024, 7:30 PM CTLocation: Soldier Field, Chicago, Ill.Forecast: 48’F  48% humidity expected at kickoff, winds W at 15mph, 45% cloud cover because and a 0% precipitationTV: Apple TV - MLS Season Pass