Chicago Fire vs FC Cincinnati: Week 9 Preview

In a league where every team plays each other at least once, you’ll eventually run into a game between the to worst teams in the league. This season, it’s actually quite surprising, since there are some teams that actually won’t play eachother. But luckily, we have the Chicago Fire hosting FC Cincinnati on Wednesday night, two teams that combine for two wins, two draws, and 11 losses so far this season. Let’s see who will be missing out on this fantastic occasion.

The only reported injury I have found for FC Cincinnati is winger Calvin Harris. For the Chicago Fire, it’s the usual Stanislav Ivanov and Kenneth Kronholm with their long-term injuries and Nick Slonina who has been listed as unavailable for almost over a month now without any full explanation. Gaston Gimenez has yet to appear for Paraguay in Copa America, but Przemyslaw Frankowski has gotten solid minutes off the bench for Poland in Euro 2020. Neither will play in this game.

Here are three things that will probably matter in this probably meaningless game:

Trust

Before I really dig into the game itself, it’s important to continue to note the changes being made to the Chicago Fire and their standing with fans. The product on the field has not changed since last season, but the product’s packaging and inner workings have shifted a bit. This past week, the Fire unveiled their new logo for next season. It’s not anything special, but it’s enough to feel like the Chicago Fire and not the child of Real Salt Lake and the Vancouver Whitecaps. And earlier this week, the Fire announced their new academy coach: Patrick Nyarko. The former player is among the most underrated for his steady time during some of the club’s worst years and is a welcome addition to many supporters.

This raises the question: Are Fire fans ready to start trusting upper management? There’s certainly still reason for distrust, with constant skirmishes with supporter groups and the fact that the team on the pitch has not improved. But decisions like this one show that there is some level of goodwill coming from owner Joe Mansueto. His desire to build an ambitious training facility for the team and willingness to speak to media stands in stark contrast to the regime that hardened these fans so much.

If the season on the pitch means nothing, could this at least be the beginning of something better for the club off the pitch?

A Lot of Math

There’s not really much to say about this game in terms of players that will matter or strategy that will matter. But I should probably lay out how bad both teams are statistically so that the general feeling of disdain makes sense.

Sticking with simple stats for now: the Chicago Fire are the bottom of the league in goals scored with 4. FC Cincinnati is tied for second least with 6. Then on defense, Cincy takes the lead with the most goals allowed, with 16. The Fire aren’t as bad, but their lack of goalscoring does put them at the second-worst goal differential with -9. The worst? Cincy with -11.

It’s when you dig into the advanced stats that things start to separate in equally depressing ways. Cincy has the absolute worst xGA per 90 in the league and the fourth lowest total xG. This team is bad and they are performing very very bad. But in Chicago, they actually have a fairly average xG and a slightly below-average xGA. It gets bad when you compare the “x” to the real number and see that the Fire aren’t just underperforming by an enormous amount on either side of the ball, they are underperforming their xG by a MILE. To put their -7.6 G-xG (goals minus expected goals) into perspective, the next worse team, Austin FC, only has it at -6.1. If you tried to put this into an actual scientific graph, the Fire would be tossed aside as an outlier.

Battle for the Spoon

So I’ve established that both teams are bad. Very very bad. And that this game, taking into consideration that there are still over 25 games left to play in the season for both of these sides, feels almost entirely meaningless in any race except for the race for the Wooden Spoon. The Wooden Spoon, which for a long time was a made-up award, became real due to Chicago Fire supporters making a physical trophy after finishing at the bottom of the league twice in a row in 2015 and 2016. It now has a very good chance of “coming home” if the Fire continue to struggle in the final third against the worst defense in the league.

Wednesday night will be one of those games that’s going to make everyone question how much soccer is worth it. The best case scenario is that my old motto comes true once again and “something stupid happens.” A hard-fought game with nothing but pride on the line for both sides. But it seems all too likely for it to simply be a scoreless draw with both teams gifting eachother chances and somehow being unable to send it into the back of the net.

But this is soccer. These are our clubs. And so we watch and we hope that something meaningful will happen.

Projected XI

Chicago Fire (4-3-3): Bobby Shuttleworth; Miguel Navarro, Francisco Calvo, Wyatt Omsberg, Boris Sekulic; Alvaro Medran, Luka Stojanovic, Mauricio Pineda; Ignacio Aliseda, Robert Beric, Brian Gutierrez

FC Cincinnati (4-5-1): Kenneth Vermeer; Roland Matarrita, Exon Vallecilla, Geoff Cameron, Joseph-Claude Gyau; Isaac Atanga, Yuya Kubo, Allan Cruz, Luciano Acosta, Alvaro Barreal; Brenner

How To Watch

Wednesday, June 23rd, 7:00PM CDT; At Soldier Field in Chicago,IL, on WGN and online on the Chicago Fire website