Chicago Fire Fall 1-0 Against Vancouver Whitecaps FC in Home Opener

WATCH: Match Highlights

BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. –The Chicago Fire fell 1-0 against Vancouver Whitecaps FC in the club’s home opener on Saturday at Toyota Park.

Missing a quartet of starters, the Fire still held 59 percent of the possession and spent a good amount of time on the attack. However, Vancouver Designated Player Octavio Rivero delivered a late game-winner for Vancouver, slotting a close-range shot in the 86th minute after a misclearance by the Fire’s back line.

    • MLS Matchcenter: #CHIvVAN | Postmatch Quotes | Player Reaction

Chicago was on the attack early and had a golden chance to take the lead in the 24th minute. Scottish Designated Player Shaun Maloney found Quincy Amarikwa with a threaded pass through the midfield to open the sequence. Amarikwa turned and collected both space and defenders before slipping a pass to winger Joevin Jones on the left side of the box. Jones blasted a left-footed shot low toward the far post, but was denied by the outstretched leg of Vancouver GK David Ousted.

One minute later Vancouver needed another special effort to keep Chicago off the scoreboard. This time it was defender Sam Adekugbe supplying the save, heading away a shot destined for the net off the foot of Maloney. The Fire used a bit of trickery to set the chance up, with Harry Shipp electing to lay a free kick off for Maloney at the top of the box rather than whipping in a cross. The attempt would have paid off if not for Adekugbe.

Ousted made two more game-changing saves before the first half was over. The 2014 MLS leader in shutouts denied Harry Shipp on a pair of occasions, the first coming from close range just after the half-hour mark. Shipp found himself open on the left and crushed a shot toward goal, but Ousted came off his line and made the save. Shipp left a higher degree of difficulty for Ousted on his next attempt, firing for the low post after Michael Stephens sprung him with a pass through the legs of Adekugbe. Ousted again made his presence felt, reaching across his body to parry the shot away for a corner.

Vancouver broke the deadlock in the final minutes after Lovel Palmer’s attempted clearance landed at the feet of Whitecaps FC defender Steven Beitashour inside the area. The 2014 FIFA World Cup veteran found Rivero open in the middle of the box, allowing the Uruguayan striker to place his shot into the lower far corner.

Ousted wasn’t the only goalkeeper making key saves on Saturday. Chicago’s Jon Busch nearly earned a clean sheet on the night thanks to his five saves. Busch also made his 297th MLS appearance, moving him within three of a games-played landmark only reached by a trio of other goalkeepers in league history – Joe Cannon (342), Nick Rimando (371) and Kevin Hartman (416).

The Men in Red return to action on Sunday, March 22 against the San Jose Earthquakes in the first MLS regular season match at Avaya Stadium. Kickoff is 6 p.m. CT on FOX Sports 1 and FOX Deportes.

Chicago Fire 0  - 1 Vancouver Whitecaps FC

Chicago Fire: Jon Busch; Eric Gehrig, Jeff Larentowicz ©, Adailton, Lovel Palmer; Matt Polster (Kennedy Igboananike 59’); Michael Stephens (Alex 82’), Shaun Maloney, Harry Shipp, Joevin Jones; Quincy Amarikwa (Guly do Prado) 76’

Substitutes not used: Alec Kann; Greg Cochrane; Chris Ritter, Matthew Watson

Vancouver Whitecaps FC: David Ousted; Sam Adekugbe, Kendal Waston, Pa Moudou Kah, Steven Beitashour; Matias Laba, Mauro Rosales (Nicolas Mezquida 45+’), Russell Tiebert, Kekuta Manneh, Pedro Morales ©; Octavio Rivero

Substitutes not used: Paolo Tornaghi; Jordan Harvey, Diego Rodriguez, Gershon Koffie, Erik Hurtado, Darren Mattocks

Scoring Summary
VAN – Octavio Rivero (Steven Beitashour) 86’

Misconduct Summary
CHI – Matt Polster (caution) 4’
VAN – Kendall Waston (caution) 21’
VAN – Pedro Morales (caution) 66’
VAN – Nicolas Mezquida (caution) 76’
VAN – Octavio Rivero (caution) 82’
CHI – Kennedy Igboananike (caution) 90+’

Referee: Fotis Bazakos
Assistants: Anthony Vasoli, Eduardo Mariscal
Fourth Official: Kevin Terry Jr.
Attendance: 15,731

Postmatch Quotes
Chicago Fire Head Coach and Director of Soccer Frank Yallop

On the match
“Obviously not the result that we wanted from the opening night, but I thought progress wise and performance wise I thought we played some decent stuff against a team that plays a counter-attacking style that’s very quick and have players that can hurt you on the break. I thought the game was pretty open, especially in the second half, with both teams creating some decent chances and they took the one that came along their way. I think football wise I was pleased with the ball movement, not throughout the whole game obviously, I thought we fell off a bit at the end, but in general I thought we had at least enough chances to score a goal, and I think that maybe a tie would’ve been a fair result for us.

On the formation
“Well, if we’re too rigid, you’ll say something. For now, we’ve got fluid movement and that’s what we’re trying to do, to unbalance the team we are playing against. It’s not just going out there and standing in their spots, I want them to move around, get on the ball, be active, and do all those things. It’s not tactical at all. Maybe you saw something different.”

On Jon Busch
“Jon did great, no problems at all. That’s why we have him, why he joined us. He did very well, very capable player, good locker room guy. I thought he had a good performance for sure.”

On the lack of scoring
“We always want to try and score goals, we’re trying to. I think it was the finishing rather than the actual play building up to the chances that we had. I think JJ should’ve scored first half, he had a good chance. Michael Stephens should’ve done better, but again, you can’t make guys finish chances, just got to create them and keep believing that we’re going to score. Obviously it’s a work in progress with what we are doing and trying to stay confident, stay positive with everything we’re trying to do.  I think a lot of times scoring comes when you are confident as a team and you can play for 90 minutes, and I think that’s still to come.”

On the decision to start Kennedy Igoananike on the bench
“He had a bit of cramp in the game, didn’t train for a couple days last week, and I just decided I wanted to see how Harry and Shaun worked below Quincy in that sort of triangle, if you like, so it’s tactical, but again, just an eye on him getting used to it. I had a good chat with him, some of the guys that join the league, it’s not an easy league to get in, sometimes you can slide them in  a few times as a sub. I feel like he looked really bright for ten or fifteen minutes when he came on the field, and again, it’s not an easy process. I think the system we started with; we possessed the ball well, which is a good start for us.”

On playing Harry Shipp and Shaun Maloney together
“Good, I mean we sort of run out of a little bit of gas, I thought. We put a lot into the game, and kind of run out, not of ideas, but kind of a little bit of gas towards the end, in the final third, especially late in the game.  When you put the subs on you hope that they can continue the momentum of the team, and go out and see the game out and win the game for us, but it didn’t quite happen.”

On trying to play attractive soccer
“I thought we played well enough to get at least get a goal in the game. I think that the way we went about it, it wasn’t a defensive posture or set up, or our formation. It’s just up to the players to then really take on board and enjoy themselves in their role, and I think they tried to , we  tried to do the right things, I felt. We had good moments in the game where another day we could’ve scored and then get going in our game. I think for a first game we weren’t terrible, we weren’t great, probably performance wise maybe 6 out of ten, but obviously we didn’t win the game, and that’s what we’re here to do. I’m disappointed with the result for sure, positives in some parts of the performance and then we got to work on staying connected as a group and not getting counter attacked late in the game. That’s what happened in the game, I thought.”

On moving Jeff Larentowicz up in the second half
“Matt had a yellow card and the referee kept warning him next foul was going to be a yellow and then a red so we took him off as a precaution so someone didn’t get a red card. Basically, I thought Matt was playing well for us in his first game for us, his first start, I should say. Shame that he got a yellow card in the first two minutes of the match.”

On Matt Polster’s performance
“I thought he did well, I thought that it’s never easy to play well with a yellow card for basically the rest of the game; I think he got it after 3 minutes. I was pleased with him, I think that he didn’t freeze, I thought he enjoyed the game, I thought that he was influential in a lot of the stuff we did well. So, it was good start for him, I thought he did fine.”

On Eric Gehrig’s performance
“With Matt coming out the natural one for me was JJ bringing back to his natural left back spot, and put Lovel in right back, and then Eric has played in the middle, not with Adailton but has played in the middle in our first game, and has played in the middle in preseason. No issues with him playing there I just think we were 1v1 a lot when we were pushed forward and getting caught on the counter attack and then just 1v1 on the edge of the box and its difficult, it’s difficult to handle quick players like they have.”

On Shaun Maloney’s performance
“Well, it’s the same thing we just talked about, he himself has got to get him into the mode of playing well, I saw moments today, I think he started to get into it , some interchange of passes with Harry and Quincy, just not long enough though, not long enough spells of it. He’ll grow into his role, and make sure that he’s influential for the 90 minutes that he plays. I think that again, I don’t make excuses for anybody, I want him to make sure he knows that it’s a difficult league to play in, with new teammates, and we just got to keep going, keep plugging away, and try to play the way we want to play and get results now, moving forward.”

On Lovel Palmer’s clearance that lead to Vancouver’s goal
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.  Yeah, he should either guide it out for a corner kick or head it out back away from the goal area, for sure.”

Chicago Fire Midfielder Harry Shipp

On opening the home schedule with a loss
“It’s unfortunate. I think it's more frustrating than last week because we actually played pretty well. We were able to keep the ball, especially in the first 60 to 70 minutes of the game. We created some chances that we should've put away; that's on us. We're not going to make excuses about it. As hard as it is to swallow giving up a goal in the last 10 minutes, there's definitely stuff to build on from the first 65 or 70 minutes.”

On attracting more fans
“It's on us to attract fans. When we start winning games, they'll come. That's our goal, and that's what we're trying to work on towards the middle and end of this year.”

On the progress of the Fire attack
“We're still missing pieces, and we're still getting used to the pieces that we do have. We basically have a whole new set of guys, guys working in different positions still trying things out, so I think that will come. We have enough creative guys on the field to create chances; once you start scoring goals, it's just mentality. We'll be all right.”

On playing alongside midfielder Shaun Maloney
“Today, especially, was fun. We interchanged in the middle; we were both on the left and right, overloaded sides, and were able to keep the ball in the middle a lot, which is something we didn't do against the Galaxy. I think that's something to build on going forward. He's definitely a fun guy to play with, so I look forward to that.”

On changing the narrative from last season
“I think we desperately need a win, but we also have the personalities that, no matter what happens, are going to keep cool. Like I said, this is something to build on; we're going to take the positives out of this game and work towards next weekend. I think it's frustrating coming off last year, but it's only two games out of thirty-four. If you look at a team like New England last year, they were full of runs; if we get on a hot streak and win a few games in a row, I think we'll be fine.”

Chicago Fire Goalkeeper Jon Busch

On Vancouver's lone goal
“They got down the side, whipped it in; [Lovel] Palmer gets good contact on it, unfortunately his header goes directly to [Steven] Beitashour. Beitashour controls it, looks up, plays it back across to a guy running in.”

On the Chicago Fire defense
“I think we have some very talented players. For the most part, we were very organized. They're a very skillful attacking team, they're a big counter-attack team, they've got a lot of pace, they have some explosive guys. I think they did a great job in front of me. We're all disappointed about that: 5 minutes left in the game, we need to get out of there 0-0. That's what was on the table. I know we were pushing to get the goal, rightfully so, we're at home; but we also need to be smart on the backside, and not keep blowing up, because that hurts in the last 5 minutes. If you get out of there 0-0, then you at least get the clean sheet.”

Chicago Fire Midfielder Shaun Maloney

On the mood after the game
“It's very disappointing at the moment. I thought for the first hour of the game, we played as well as we did during preseason; it's just disappointing the way the last half hour went. But we have to regroup and come again for next weekend.”

On his personal performance
“I think it was pretty similar to the team: for the first hour, I was fit for the game. The last half hour, I certainly could have done better. The first hour or so, myself and the team were putting on a decent game. Unfortunately, the game completely opened up, and we got done on the break.”

On the expectations on attack
“I think we should have scored. From the amount of chances we created, I think we should have scored at least one or two in this game. I think we just need to be more clinical. I think our goalkeeper had a pretty good game, but we need to be more clinical in the final third.”

On attacking creativity
“There were spells, but I think we want to improve. I think we were better than we were in the LA game the first hour of this game, but we still have lots of improvement to do to get closer to the teams at the top end of these conferences.”

On the change from first to second half
“I think we just controlled the game. Even still, Vancouver had a couple chances on the breakaway. But were pretty solid, we were controlling possession. Then the start of the second half was pretty even; the last half hour, the game just completely opened up. I think one side was going to win it with one goal on the breakaway; but I think we should be a lot tighter than that.”

On being happy with tactical positioning
“Yes, in the first half, I was very happy. With the tactical change in the second half, I was a little bit deeper. But I'm happy wherever the manager wants me to play.”