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The Good
Diego Chaves scored his 4th goal of the season. Chaves is second in MLS trailing only Charlie Davies with 5 goals. Regardless of the Chicago Fire play, I think there is a really good chance that Chaves could take away the Golden Boot. Marco Pappa continues to play well. He setup Chaves with some dribbling and creative manuvering in the midfield.
The bad, ugly, and looking forward are after the break.
The Bad
Josip Mikulic came up cramped. I hope he isn't out for a long extended period of time. Dominic Oduro had a great opportunity to put the Fire up 2-0 in the 66th minute of match. It was a one on one with Houston goalkeeper Tally Hall. In a fashion that the league is more familiar with from Oduro, he launched a shot that bounced off the top crossbar. I think he earned this start against his former squad but I would put him back into a sub role for now.
The Ugly
The bad habit of giving up a goal in the last 15 minutes of the game reared its ugly head again. In the 83rd minute, Houston's Brad Davis sent a cross from the west side of the field and Bobby Boswell knocked in a header past a diving Jon Conway. The referee put seven minutes of extra time on the clock. I'm not sure why. You rarely see anything more than 5 and I didn't think there was that much time wasted in the second half. It was certainly the opposite of the Seattle game where you had a healthy amount of extra time wasted by delays and then the referee refused to adjust to that. Either way, the Fire did not mount a serious attack and the game stayed a 1-1 draw.
Looking Ahead
Things don't get any easier next week as Chicago travels to Colorado to take on the Rapids. The Rapids have lost three straight after winning three straight so while the team is in flux that also means the defending MLS Cup winners will be hungry. Colorado will take the field for the first time since defender Brad Mullan had the reckless tackle on Steve Zakuani on Friday. That will affect their lineup and if might affect their team mentality. Hopefully Chicago can find some advantage. They stopped the bleeding last night but the injury is still visible.