The Art Institute of Chicago should come on down to Toyota Park because the drawing going on these days is amazing. The Chicago Fire Reserves drew the Sporting Kansas City Reserves 1-1 in a game that tells us more about the individual players than any kind of team work. More on that and the latest MLS Injury Report Update after the break.
Reserves League Game vs. Sporting Kansas City Reserves
The Chicago Fire rolled out a 4-1-4-1 with the starting lineup of Alec Dufty; Dasan Robinson, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Josip Mikulic , Bratislav Ristic; Martin Rivas, Brady Wahl, Baggio Husidic, Victor Pineda; Cristian Nazarit , Orr Barouch against the Sporting Kansas City Reserves yesterday at Toyota Park. Nazarit got right to work scoring a goal in the 11th minute. Barouch combined with the recently acquired Colombian forward on a pretty give-and-go. In the 42nd minute, Sporting KC forward C.J. Sapong sent a ball that found the feet of Chance Myers who chipped the ball past Fire goaltender Alec Dufty to even the score at 1-1. That would be the final score as well. Peter Beasley entered the game for Josip Mikulic in the 41st minute and Gabriel Ferrari came in for Nazarit in the 69th minute. Bratislav Ristic and Orr Barouch received yellow cards in the 66th and 67th minute respectively after they got into a little tussle with Sporting KC players following a foul to Victor Pineda. KC's Luke Sassano also recieved a yellow card. Good on the first team players defending the young home grown player. Let's see some more protecting of Chicago Fire teammates all around.
There is not too much that should be read into the game play itself. Some of these players are saving themselves for this next weekend or are just recouping from the previous weekend of play. Sporting Kansas City's defense is bad to begin with, you can imagine what the Reserves are like. SKC first team goalie Jimmy Nielsen was in the net so that's not too shabby though. My only guess on Nielsen's appearance was to get him time with any and all defensive players because the back line of SKC is in such shambles. You should take away the positive that Nazarit scored a goal so quickly but let's not get out of hand here. Chicago Fire Academy player Brady Wahl received his first Reserves League start. Wahl had been a last minute substitute in the first two Reserves League games. U-17/18 Academy team captain Peter Beasley made his third Reserves League appearance while his academy teammates Joel Salmeron and Andrew Conner made the bench but did not play. We'll have more reactions to who started later in the day in our updated depth chart.
MLS Injury Report
Josip Mikulic left the game in the 40th minute but fortunately it was not due to any injury. The latest MLS Injury Report was released yesterday and Mikulic is still officially listed as Questionable due to his left shoulder injury. You can bet that Tuesday's game was a test match for him and he looks all right. Pari Pantazopoulos has hit the injury list as Doubtful with a left quad contusion. Patrick Nyarko, Steven Kinney, and Mike Banner all remain Out. Mike Videira has been downgraded to Out with his concussion symptoms. Marko Maric, well do you really expect him to be healthy at this point? In good news, Sean Johnson has been upgraded to Probable with his right quad strain. Logan Pause has been removed from the list all together. Both Pause and Johnson took part in light training yesterday and look very likely to be available for selection on Saturday vs. Philadelphia.