After what seemed like a turn around for the Chicago Fire after last weeks win, the Fire and Real Salt Lake closed in a scoreless draw Saturday night at Toyota Parkat Toyota Park on Saturday. The Fire were looking to acquire three points to draw closer to Columbus who sits in second place. Instead, they only managed to get one point, and their climb to the top of table now gets harder.

It was clear that the Chicago Fire was the better team throughout the night. The Fire had more chances, and more missed opportunities than Real Salt Lake . The Fire forwards could not find the back of the net, and were unlucky several times. Chad Barrett hit the post and Chris Rolfe had an open net opportunity after beating RSL goalie Nick Rimando. Instead of finding the inside netting, Rolfe managed to get the outside netting. These opportunities didn’t stop the Fire from trying and they kept attacking, but found no goals. They did however find numerous corner kick opportunities, fourteen to be exact. Even with all those chances, they still didn’t help the Fire. After the game, coach Denis Hamlett, said, “We wasted forty five minutes; I think it was the worst first half we’ve played at home all season. The second half we played the way we wanted to play”. Denis is right about wasting the first half but the second half was just as wasteful with more missed scoring opportunities.

The Fire continues to look like a good team that just can’t score. The defense was phenomenal once again, and Jon Busch played another excellent game. “Yeah, their playing great, after every game I’m giving them kudos”. Jon Busch has made some excellent saves throughout the season, but if Busch doesn’t have the defense he has, then more shots on goal would be coming towards him. The defense has been the Fires strength this season, but this team can also move the ball well too. Justin Mapp had another excellent game, but once this team can figure out how to score goals, and improve on their crosses and aerial game then this team can go back to being MLS Cup favorites.

The Fire may have came away with one point, but hopefully they also came away knowing that trying to get goals from crosses, and corner kicks don’t work for this team. This team has to come up with new ways other then corners and crosses because they have no aerial game. Brian McBride has scored some phenomenal goals with his head, and Fire fans should hope that MLS can make Toronto FC let him go to the Fire.

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