Dax McCarty once again got the best of his old side D.C. United helping the Chicago Fire earn a 1-0 victory (photo credit: MLS Soccer)
DC United 0-1 Chicago Fire
BRIDGEVIEW, IL—It wasn’t pretty, but the Chicago Fire continued their winning ways by defeating a game DC United side, 1-0, in the Fire’s final match at RFK Stadium barring Open Cup or playoffs. It is the Fire’s first away win on US soil since July 12th, 2014 and they are also just one more win away from matching last season’s win total.
It was an unchanged lineup from Wednesday for Veljko Paunovic and they still looked the better side during the match.
The match’s only goal came in the 52nd minute when Luis Solignac sent David Accam past the offside trap and Accam beat Bill Hamid far post for the only score.
Hamid made six saves on the day, three of them came against Nemanja Nikolic. Were it not for Hamid, the scoreline would have been more lopsided on this day. DC clearly missed Luciano Acosta who was suspended for the match and lacked endeavor in attack.
“Obviously, I’m very excited and very happy for three points but more than just the result, we’re very happy for the performance and for how we played,” said Fire head coach Veljko Paunovic. “Our style that we developed in this game, is something that we’ve been looking for in these two seasons, and now finally the pieces are coming together. The performances, like this one, will help to forge the character and the identity of this group. Right now, for us, it’s a really enjoyable experience to see the team playing the way it is and winning, most importantly. We have another game in four days against one of the best teams in the league, Dallas, so Monday we have to go back to work and prepare for the game.”
David Accam says that the team has the mentality to win every game and is confident they can beat any team.
“It’s huge now–the confidence is huge now because we feel like we can beat anyone in this league and also control the game as well,” said Accam. “Today we did, we controlled the game and we won today.
“[The team’s mentality is to] win every game. Especially playing at home, we don’t care–anyone we play at home, we will try to win every game and that’s what we will do.”
The Fire return home to take on FC Dallas in a Thursday night encounter. Kickoff is at 7:30pm on CSN Plus.
SCORING SUMMARY:
CHI-David Accam (Solignac) 52
BOOKING SUMMARY:
DC-Marcelo Sarvas (caution, dangerous play) 7
DC-Lamar Neagle (caution, reckless foul) 64
CHI-Bastian Schweinsteiger (caution, goalkeeper interference) 66
DC UNITED (4-1-4-1): #28-Bill Hamid; #15-Steve Birnbaum, #22-Chris Korb (#3-Chris Odoi-Astem 84), #32-Bobby Boswell, #2-Taylor Kemp; #25-Jared Jeffrey; #8-Lloyd Sam, #7-Marcelo Sarvas (#23-Ian Harkes 72), #11-Sebastien Le Toux, #13-Lamar Neagle; #16-Patrick Mullins (#9-Jose Guillermo Ortiz 72)
Subs not used: #1-Travis Worra, #6-Kofi Opare, #33-Julian Buescher, #21-Christopher Durkin
CHICAGO FIRE (4-2-3-1): #28-Matt Lampson; #2-Matt Polster, #4-Johan Kappelhof, #66-Joao Meira, #3-Brandon Vincent; #31-Bastian Schweinsteiger, #6-Dax McCarty; #9-Luis Solignac, #8-Michael de Leeuw (#16-Jonathan Campbell 85), #11-David Accam (#18-Drew Conner 78); #23-Nemanja Nikolic (#10-David Arshakyan 92+)
Subs not used: #30-Stefan Cleveland, #5-Michael Harrington, #12-Arturo Alvarez, #14-Djordje Mihailovic
TOTAL SHOTS: DC 10-15 CHI
SHOTS ON GOAL: DC 2-7 CHI
FOULS: DC 21-16 CHI
OFFSIDES: DC 1-4 CHI
CORNER KICKS: DC 3-1 CHI
SAVES: DC 6-2 CHI
Referee: Hilario Grajeda
Referee’s Assistants: Danny Thornberry, Eric Weisbrod
4th Official: Mark Kadelcik
Weather: Cloudy and 71º
Attendance: 20,618
Man of the Match: David Accam (CHI)
Chicago Fire
DC United
