{"id":21983,"date":"2013-09-14T10:28:24","date_gmt":"2013-09-14T14:28:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21983"},"modified":"2013-09-14T12:01:09","modified_gmt":"2013-09-14T16:01:09","slug":"showdown-in-chi-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=21983","title":{"rendered":"Showdown in Chi-Town"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Photo<\/a>

Photo credit: Kari Heistad\/capturedimages.biz<\/p><\/div>\n

After a mini-skid against two teams from the North side of the border, the New England Revolution (10-10-7, 37 pts.) will look to get back to winning track when they face the Chicago Fire (10-11-6, 36 points)\u00a0tonight\u00a0at Toyota Park, where the Revolution claimed the first of their two victories against their longtime conference rival this season.<\/p>\n

The Fire, who are coming off a\u00a01-1 midweek draw at Toronto FC, will be hoping that the third time is a charm against a team that’s blanked them in their previous two meetings.<\/p>\n

New England opened the season on March 10 with a 1-0 victory over the Fire in Chicago\u00a0thanks to\u00a0a 62nd minute\u00a0from\u00a0shot Jerry Bengston, and in the process, claimed its\u00a0first regular season win at Chicago since July 8, 2006.\u00a0Five months after their First Kick clash,\u00a0New England claimed its second win over the Fire in\u00a0a 2-0\u00a0victory, with second half goals from Juan Agudelo and Kelyn Rowe providing the offense.<\/p>\n

Despite residing below the red line at the moment, the Fire\u00a0have played some of its best soccer at Toyota Park this season. In 14 home contests, the Fire\u00a0are 8-4-2, and have claimed\u00a026\u00a0of their 36 total points before their fans at Bridgeview. But the Revolution, who’ve claimed results in three of their last four road tilts, may pose a considerable\u00a0threat to the Fire’s success at home.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s clash\u00a0will mark the sixth time the conference rivals have met in a span on 15 months. But it’s not a stretch to say that this one will\u00a0probably their most crucial\u00a0with both clubs\u00a0fighting for a playoff spot with only seven games left in the regular season.<\/p>\n

A win for the fifth-place Revs will give them\u00a0a much-needed cushion\u00a0in the Eastern Conference since they are facing a Fire\u00a0team\u00a0that’s only one point behind them. New England can also gain more ground in case there\u2019s a winner in\u00a0Saturday’s Houston – Philadelphia match-up. A New England victory in Bridgeview combined with a win by Houston will allow them leapfrog Philadelphia for the fourth spot in in the east.\u00a0However, if the Union and Revolution both emerge victorious, New England\u00a0would spend another week neck and neck with the Dynamo.<\/p>\n

On the other hand,\u00a0a loss to the Fire,\u00a0paired with a\u00a0Dynamo win or draw\u00a0over the Union would sink the Revolution to seventh, where no team wants to be with six games to go and a pair of tough road contests against New York (October 5) and Montreal (October 12)\u00a0on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis, who started the last four matches in the cage, is suspended for the match following his red card\u00a0for fouling\u00a0striker Marco Di Vaio inside the 18 in Sunday’s 4-2 loss. New England forward Juan Agudelo, who missed last week\u2019s match against Montreal with a hamstring strain he suffered against Toronto FC on August 30, is unlikely to travel with the team.<\/p>\n

Although the Revolution won’t be at full strength, there’s no question they’ll once again rely on their defense to set the tone early. In both regular season matchups, the Revolution kept it scoreless at halftime, then pulled away in the second half. Expect them to aim for the same approach, even with Reis and Agudelo unavailable.<\/p>\n

Prediction:\u00a0 2-1 Fire<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time since the days of Taylor Twellman and Steve Ralston, the Revolution will play a meaningful late-season match against the Fire. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":21984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Rowe11.png?fit=493%2C258&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21983"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21983"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21994,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21983\/revisions\/21994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}