Chicago Fire’s midweek training: 3 takeaways from Week 1

This is the Chicago Fire midweek training session, in which I discuss all the goings-on in Chicago. For this week, here are three takeaways from Week 1 of the MLS season.

Hello and welcome to the first edition of Mid-Week Training, where I try to pick apart what the Chicago Fire should be looking at this week during training. This involves takeaways from the last game, looking forward at the next opponent, and other general problems facing the club this week. Let’s get started.

This past week, the Chicago Fire started their season on the road in LA to face up against the Los Angeles Galaxy. After a promising start to the game, filled with plenty of chances, the Fire ultimately surrendered their one-goal lead and lost 2-1. While a loss is a loss, there were plenty of positives.

This week, I have three takeaways from Week 1 of the MLS season, including some changes that need to be made as the campaign unfolds.

3. Attacking creativity let down by wasteful finishing

The biggest theme of the game this past Saturday was the constant attack that the Fire were able to inflict on the Galaxy defense. There’s a lot of excitement about it right now, but it is important to keep feet on the ground seeing as the Galaxy defense isn’t exactly the best. They were tied for fifth-most in goals allowed last season and many critics say that they did not do enough to address the concerns back there going into this season.

On the other hand, this Saturday the Fire will open up the 2019 season at SeatGeek Stadium against the team who allowed the most goals last season, Orlando City. This should mean that fans may not need to worry about hitting the ceiling in terms of attacking strength yet.

Chicago’s biggest contributor during the game was a player who I was less than impressed with during the preseason, Przemyslaw Frankowski. The young winger, signed from Polish club Jagellonia Bialystok, served as the heart of the attack with his pace and drive down the flanks. This work was complemented by Aleksander Katai’s dribbling around the box and Djordje Mihailovich’s passing. With this attack, the Fire kept a lot of the possession on the Galaxy end for large periods, especially in the first half, creating chance after chance. This new-found strength, however, is now highlighting a new weakness.

With the plethora of chances created, the only goal the Fire got out of this game was off of a dumb error from an LA defender. As I’ve been saying, the chances are there; it’s the finishing that’s off. A couple of plays were missing that crucial accuracy in the final third. This is something that head coach Veljko Paunovic will absolutely be walking his team through this week.

One key aspect to note is that the Fire’s main striker, Nemanja Nikolic, was unavailable this past week and, while CJ Sapong did his best off the ball, attracting a lot of attention from the LA center backs, he is not the same natural finisher as the Serbian. I’d wait to panic about this, especially when Chicago is up against Orlando this week.