Brian McBride won a crucial penalty as a late fightback from the Chicago Fire saw them come from behind to secure a thrilling 3-2 win over Chivas USA.
Chivas were clinging onto a 2-1 lead until Patrick Nyarko drilled in an 89th minute equaliser. McBride was accused of diving by the Chivas coach Preki Radosavljevic after he was bundled over by Mariano Cuauhtemoc Blanco stepped up to convert the spot-kick and preserve the Fire’s unbeaten start to their MLS campaign.
The home side opened with the scoring with a spectacular strike from Paulo Nagamura, but the Fire were soon level through Blanco’s first penalty of the evening. Awarded for a tug of Wilman Conde’s shirt, Blanco confidently tucked away the spot-kick. Chivas did go back in front when Galindo scored from the spot himself after he had been fouled by Bakary Soumare.
There was no doubt that a red card Jesse Marsch, sent off for a second bookable offence just after the hour, helped tilt the game in Chicago’s favour. Even a point looked beyond them until a dramatic final few minutes.
Damn right McBride took a dive and it worked. McBride will get the “benefit of the doubt” call from the refs 99% of the time. It’s the whole “nice guy” image.
I was thrilled with the win. Kept me up until after 1am, but well worth it.
Kept you up til past 1am? Think what it did to my sleeping pattern over here!
haha..yeah, thats like 6am for you. Do they show MLS games on TV over there or do you watch online? I remember in 2002 when I visited Cambridge for a month I could never find a MLS game on.
They show games delayed really early in the mornings on Channel 5, but that’s become even rarer now since the economy meant they scrapped most of their US sports coverage. Live games are on one of the smaller satellite channels over here, but normally I’ll watch a stream somewhere. One of my neighbours has the American channels on his TV so sometimes we’ll head over there if the Fire or the US are playing.
I have a subscription to MLS TV. I should hook you up with my username/password.
Mate that’s very kind. I fear the MLS is going to be on the backburner for a little bit in the next few weeks though – what with the Lions tour, the tennis, the Euro U21s and the cricket.
The Lions played like shit yesterday. Its like they waited until the final 20 minutes to finally wake up. Luckily for me, O’Gara had a great game (he’s on my Lions Fantasy Challenge Team).
Today I’m looking forward to the USA Eagles ve Ireland. We’ll get crushed, but we have 6 talented/young uncapped players who may find their way into Europe at some point in the near future.
Fire me an email at some point and I’ll hook you up with my MLS.TV log in info.