{"id":9677,"date":"2017-09-09T07:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T11:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonsoccer.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=9677"},"modified":"2021-12-13T18:25:42","modified_gmt":"2021-12-13T23:25:42","slug":"health-key-chicago-fire-new-york-red-bull-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/2017\/09\/09\/health-key-chicago-fire-new-york-red-bull-clash\/","title":{"rendered":"Health Key For Chicago Fire In New York Red Bull Clash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Saturday\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/tv\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">nationally televised<\/a> MLS game pits the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicago-fire.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chicago Fire<\/a> against a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorkredbulls.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">New York Red Bulls<\/a> side climbing the Eastern Conference playoff positions. Saturday afternoon at Toyota Park will be the Fire\u2019s first home game since losing back-to-back games to Toronto FC and Minnesota United FC. The Fire have a long list of injured players which includes star winger David Accam, center back Joao Meira, and World Cup Champion Bastian Schweinsteiger. The <em>Men In Red<\/em>\u2019s team sheet is boosted however by Matt Polster\u2019s recovery from injury and Dax McCarty\u2019s return from National Team duty. The American midfielder produced one his finest performances of the season against his former team during the two clubs encounter at Red Bull Arena. The April 29th matchup ended in a 2-1 New York Red Bull win.<\/p>\n<h1 class=\"p1\">Health Key For Chicago Fire In New York Red Bull Clash<\/h1>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Fire\u2019s defense received a boost with right back Matt Polster\u2019s excellent return last week in Montreal. The ball moving out from the back was much improved with Polster on the right, the transformed midfielder also set up the games only goal excellently. MLS&#8217; &#8216;Armchair Analyst&#8217; pointed out\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/post\/2017\/09\/03\/armchair-analyst-worth-fullback-more-week-26-slate\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the fire are now 10-3-2 when he plays, and 3-6-3 when he doesn&#8217;t.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Bastian Schweinsteiger is likely to be missing Saturday with Dax McCarty stepping straight into the German\u2019s spot from the USMNT bench. McCarty\u2019s first games back from international call ups have not been his best of the season, but playing against his old team should raise the native Floridian\u2019s performance.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Dax McCarty with a nice assist against his former team, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChicagoFire?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@ChicagoFire<\/a> tie it up on @CSNChicago <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/cf97?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#cf97<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QE8OR6Or8r\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/QE8OR6Or8r<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Chicago Fire Talk (@NBCSChicagoFire) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCSChicagoFire\/status\/858486030705451009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 30, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Farther up the field, winger David Accam was sporting a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailyherald.com\/sports\/20170906\/after-snapping-losing-skid-fire-look-to-keep-rolling\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">swollen ankle<\/a> midweek, putting his status as definitely questionable for Saturday. The Fire will want the speedy Ghanian back into the team as soon as possible. Along with his 14 goals and seven assists, Accam gives the team much needed speed and and flair. He along with the club have had a dip in fortune in the season&#8217;s second half. Since the Gold Cup break, Accam has seen his playing time decrease due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/post\/2017\/09\/08\/years-hardship-fueling-david-accams-rise-top-chicago\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">feuds and injuries.<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">Fire\u2019s Rollercoaster In 2017<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">The Fire were a on a great run of form during the first half of the 2017 MLS season. Hot form continued until Chicago walked away from Portland\u2019s Providence Park on a late Wednesday night in early July with a 2-2 draw. Following that seemingly steely point in the Pacific Northwest the Fire didn\u2019t play for two weeks. When the Fire returned to action in Yankee Stadium on July 22, there was major Accam Drama and Brandon Vincent went down and the losing began. Nikolic\u2019s form dips and sees his scoring stop, followed by the loss of three more defenders to injury. The 2017 season has become a rollercoaster, one in which the ride has climbed to a high peak and dropped quickly. Last week\u2019s win in Montreal may be a catalyst for another upswing on said rollercoaster. A win for Chicago in Saturday\u2019s game at Toyota Park would be a significant piece in leveling off the teams downward spiral.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"XiTBF5yLSvJ_GZTm8YoQIg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/839730892\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'XiTBF5yLSvJ_GZTm8YoQIg',sig:'3ShOaWKwpZ7ujVg63gG7T1_-9O50kEzfyyOSw7hN0Iw=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'839730892',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Saturday\u2019s nationally televised MLS game pits the Chicago Fire against a New York Red Bulls side climbing the Eastern Conference playoff positions. Saturday afternoon at Toyota Park will be the Fire\u2019s first home game since losing back-to-back games to Toronto FC and Minnesota United FC. The Fire have a long list of injured players which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1809,"featured_media":9681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[13,119,6],"tags":[92,86,89,120,33],"class_list":["post-9677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fire","category-mls","category-redbulls","tag-bastian-schweinsteiger","tag-chicago-fire","tag-david-accam","tag-dax-mccarty","tag-new-york-red-bulls"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9677","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1809"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9677"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9677\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/soccer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}