It’s Match Day Two in the 2011 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup and
the club’s Premier Development League side finds itself in Madison, WI where
they’ll end a four-match road trip against the NPSL Madison 56ers Tuesday night
at Breese Stevens Stadium.
Upon the side’s arrival in Madison Monday night, the team
had clocked 1508 miles, traveling to four different states over the course of
seven days.
It all started with last Tuesday’s U.S. Open Cup first round
match at the Iowa Menace where Indiana defender and converted Fire PDL striker
Chris Estridge notched an 87th minute goal to send the side into
Tuesday night’s second round.
Estridge’s crucial finish that night wasn’t the first he’d
bagged this season.
“Chris has been tremendous since the day he arrived,” said
Fire PDL head coach Mark Spooner. “I think back to the first practice we had
this summer where he told me he was a left back and I told him he wasn’t. He
embraced a new role with us and even though he’s never really played as a
striker he has five goals on the season and two of them have been very big
goals for us. He got one against River City Rovers in the 90th
minute to put us into the Open Cup (on May 28) and the one in Iowa which got us
here. He’s proven critical to earning us some big wins so far this summer.”
It was a quick turnaround following the team’s trip to Des
Moines as the team returned to Bridgeview, only to head east the next day for a
two-game swing with River City (Louisville) on Thursday night and Cincinnati
Kings on Saturday.
With their hosts mired at the bottom of the PDL’s Great
Lakes Division and knowing his team was to play three games in six days,
Spooner made eight changes to the lineup that played in the Open Cup match
Tuesday. The moves didn’t pay off as the side trailed 2-0 at halftime and
Hunter Gorskie’s (Stanford) 63rd minute strike wasn’t enough as the
team fell 2-1, giving expansion River City its first ever win in the PDL.
“In Louisville you could definitely tell the Open Cup was on
our mind. On the way down the guys were talking about the opportunity if we got
to get past Madison, which will be a tough game, we’ll be playing Sporting
Kansas City. At the end of the game after we lost I banned all talk of the Open
Cup because the league is important and we needed three points [against
Cincinnati.]”
With another turnaround the side headed to Cincinnati where
Louisiana Fire Juniors product Josey Portillo (Florida Gulf Coast) notched his
third goal of the season to put the team ahead 1-0 going into the half. Though
a myriad of chances came in for the visitors after the break, they didn’t put
the match away until late as Paulo Vaz (Lynn University) and Fire Academy
product Harrison Petts (Indiana) finished in the 75th and 89th
minutes respectively, giving the side a comfortable 3-0 victory.
“After Cincinnati they got confidence back and we moved on to thinking about
Tuesday’s game again. We managed to put it to the back of our minds but you
have to recognize this is a great opportunity for the guys and a great
opportunity for the club – its obviously going to play on their minds.”
While the travel is never easy, Spooner points to the fact
that his team is full of college standouts that go long distances all the time.
The bigger challenge has been balancing his side’s playing time, given two
league fixtures sandwiched between two high stakes Open Cup matches.
“It’s been tough and we definitely have some heavy legs.
We’ve tried to rotate guys whenever we can. We rested a lot of guys over the
weekend. Some guys just played 45 minutes, some guys just played one game.
We’re trying to manage it as best we can and we owe that to their respective
colleges as well, to make sure they’re getting rest even given our schedule.”
At 5-2-1 (16 points) the team sits second in the PDL Great
Lakes Division, three points behind the Michigan Bucks, but as Spooner’s focus
is nowhere near the league, given the implications of Tuesday night’s game: the
chance for the PDL side to face an MLS team for the first time in the team’s
11-year history.
“The chance to play Sporting KC is a great reward coming out
of this game. I’m not really sure in a situation like that you need to prepare
or give any type of team talk. The guys are able to hype themselves up enough
for something like that but we’ve been reminding them since the pairings came
out that they have a very tough game ahead of them and to look past Tuesday
night would be a mistake. Madison will be in the exact same situation as us and
one of the teams is going to get to play Sporting.”
One advantage any team looking to make a Cup run looks to
have is a solid goalkeeper capable of making big saves. Spooner has that in
Arlington Heights product David Meves who, coming off a national championship
season at Akron this past season has racked up five clean sheets in six
appearances across all competitions this year.
“Having David in the back alleviates a lot of concerns for
us. He’s a very confident goalkeeper right now after winning the national
championship with Akron and our backline feels that and feeds off of it. It
helps to know you have someone solid and capable of the spectacular to mop
things up when we need it.”
While its another match on the road, the Fire PDL will at
least have a small contingent from Section 8 Chicago making the three hour trek
to Madison on a charter bus setup by the club to lend their support, something
that Spooner’s side is more than thankful for.
“It honestly does mean a lot to me and I know it means a lot
to the players. The fact that the effort is even being made, it’s almost
unthinkable that they would come all that way to come and watch us play. The
Section 8 guys are fantastic, they prove it every week at Toyota Park and the
fact that they’ve made the trip up and have been so supportive of the Fire PDL
team means a lot to us.”
Chicago Fire fans not able to attend the match can get live
updates @ChiFirePremier on Twitter.
Jeff Crandall is the
Team Writer for the Chicago Fire. Follow him on Twitter @JefeCrandall.
