Bastian Schweinsteiger is 11-8, with three draws during his Chicago Fire Major League Soccer career. Since the 4-0 whipping of the Vancouver Whitecaps on Canada Day, July 1st, the Fire are just 1-5. That White Caps result nine weeks ago ended a club record undefeated in nine match stretch for the Fire.
Last night, in front of a record crowd of 21,891, the Chicago Fire fell 3-1 against MLS Supporters’ Shield leaders Toronto FC. Overall, it was the biggest match at Toyota Park since any millenial could remember.
The Fire are now (12-8-6, 41 pts.) in third place. Toronto sit a top the table (14-3-8, 50 points) With NYCFC (who have a game in hand on the Fire) two points up on #CF97.
“Yes, it is very frustrating, very disappointing,” Schweinsteiger said of this recent losing streak, something that has rarely, if ever, happened during his long illustrious career.
“I absolutely don’t like that and that’s new.”
The Captain of the most recent World Cup winning team says the current issues are total and wholistic. “It’s all, sometimes wrong decisions, sometimes not 100 percent concentrated,” Schweinsteiger said.
It’s also a cause for concern.
“There are certain moments in a game where we were actually playing well but we just made sloppy mistakes and wrong decision,” the German midfielder continued. “The other team had creative offensive players who just use this kind of sloppiness and then they score goals, and we don’t.”
Schweinsteiger had a lot of praise for his opponents last night- “this team Toronto has, I would say seven players that are creative and have quality, and that’s maybe a difference from other teams in this league.”
Basically, we can all safely say that the Fire are nowhere near as bad as they are now, and definitely nowhere near as good as they were during the winning streak. Playoff aspirations should be the realistic goal.
When you were the worst team in all of MLS for the past two years, it’s nearly impossible to then vault to becoming the best side in the top American flight the very next year. Just making the postseason this fall would be a tremendous accomplishment.
“From the beginning our goal was to make the playoffs, and we stand in a good position; we have good players, we just need to be mentally stronger. We need to make the playoffs, we have the players to make the playoffs, so we will make the playoffs,” said David Accam, Chicago Fire Midfielder
The Fire are back at home for their next match, a date with expansion side Minnesota United FC on Saturday, Aug. 26.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now and Minute Media. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes regularly to WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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