Chicago Fire vs Toronto FC: Week 15 Preview
With a quick turnaround this week, the Chicago Fire will be playing their third game in seven days on Saturday. They’ll be staying at home in Soldier Field to face a newly improved Toronto FC side that hasn’t lost since firing former Fire captain Chris Armas as head coach. Let’s see who will also not be returning.
Toronto FC, while finally getting back a lot of their injured players, will still be without standout striker Ayo Akinola. He and veteran defender Kemar Lawrence will still be away with their national teams for the Gold Cup. While not news going into this game, Toronto has recently seen the return of Alejandro Pozuelo from injury and the return of Jozy Altidore from whatever the reason it was that Armas didn’t want him playing for. And for the Fire, Stanislav Ivanov made an unexpected early appearance in Wednesday’s match, making it likely that he will feature again in this one.
Here’s what to look out for going in:
A Team
The big thing to look at going into the last game for the Chicago Fire was the massive amount of absences for the opposing team. DC United was completely depleted. Same with almost all of their other recent wins, with Atlanta United being completely gutted and both Philadelphia and Orlando sitting some of their best players. For Toronto FC, this is a team that’s only just being unleashed upon the league and the Chicago Fire are now in their way.
Chicago also has some people returning, most notably Stanislav Ivanov, but also coach Raphael Wicky should be back with the team in time for the game. While Francisco Calvo is technically the captain and an important player, he’s also one of the most controversial starters on the team. Which means that what we’ll see from Chicago is probably going to be their first-choice squad. And from Toronto, they’ll also have a mostly first-choice squad.
Much like going into the Nashville SC game, Chicago is still yet to prove that they can take on a team that isn’t missing everyone. So that makes this whole thing concerning.
Addition by Subtraction
As mentioned by pretty much everyone else in MLS media, Chris Armas was not a very good coach for Toronto FC. And any Chicago Fire fans who were calling for him to replace Raphael Wicky only a month or so ago should probably be paying attention to how much better Toronto looks now that they do not have Armas at the helm. Armas is a solid guy and was a great leader during his playing days. But on the touchline, he’s kind of a detriment to the team.
After firing Chris Armas following the 7-1 loss to DC United on July 3rd, Toronto’s been on a tear. They beat the New England Revolution, arguably one of the best teams in the league, and picked up draws against Orlando City and the New York Red Bulls. That doesn’t look like much, but remember that this team just went on a 6 game losing streak where they gave up 18 goals.
Toronto FC looks so much better than they did in the recent past and any Fire fan looking at this game from the lens of May and June is going to be rudely awakened by Jozy Altidore and Alejandro Pozuelo.
More Funny Numbers
We all know that Toronto FC was bad during their six-game losing streak. But according to the math, they were actually massively underperforming even the science. When comparing their GA to xGA, Toronto let by almost 6 more goals than expected, the most in the league. On the other hand, they also outperformed their xG, scoring 2.4 more goals than xG. Reading from that, this is a team that has an abysmal defense, but an offense that can make up for some of that failure. Which is bad news for the Fire, who have a struggling offense and a defense that’s barely helping Bobby Shuttleworth.
Speaking of Bobby, Shuttleworth is actually one of the top goalkeepers in the league according to post-shot xG metrics. Overall, the Chicago Fire are 8th in the league for PSxG-GA and individually Bobby is 10th in that metric despite having by far the highest PSxG. A high number in PSxG-GA indicates a goalkeeper who can make saves more often on shots that are less likely to be saved. But it is also a sign of a terrible defense that is allowing those shots to be taken in a way that forces the goalkeeper to work that much harder.
Projected XI
Chicago Fire (5-2-2-1): Bobby Shuttleworth; Miguel Navarro, Jonathan Bornstein, Mauricio Pineda, Wyatt Omsberg, Boris Sekulic; Alvaro Medran, Gaston Gimenez; Ignacio Aliseda, Przemyslaw Frankowski; Robert Beric
Toronto FC (4-2-3-1): Alex Bono; Justin Morrow, Chris Mavinga, Omar Gonzalez, Auro; Marky Delgado, Micheal Bradley; Yeferson Soteldo, Alejandro Pozuelo, Tsubasa Endoh; Dom Dwyer
How To Watch
Saturday, July 24th, 7:00PM CDT; At Soldier Field in Chicago, IL, on WGN and online on the Chicago Fire website