The Long and Winding Road: Another Road L for Fire

Nothing like padding the new record for most consecutive road losses.

Just a few days after the Chicago Fire clinched the MLS record with 28 straight losses, the Men in Red went into New England and added an extra loss to the unflattering record with a meandering 2-0 defeat Saturday night against the Revolution.

If fans have watched any other matches this season, than they already have a pretty good picture of how this match went down: The Fire kept possession relatively close (51.5-48.5 in favor of Revolution), but any possession in the final third was sucked into the black hole of suckitude that has become the Fire’s offense this season.

Just how bad was the offense on Saturday night? Try zero.

As in, another match with zero shots on goal and only four total shots.

In fact, the only real opportunity the Fire had to challenge Rev’s GK Bobby Shuttleworth was when his own teammate nearly headed an Accam cross into the goal. The lack of offense was especially impressive considering it was against a team in New England that has given up at least one goal in 9 of their 11 matches this season.

Bold strategy to rely on own goals, Fire. Sadly, it didn’t work out.

There were a few bright spots on Saturday, if one looked hard enough. After missing two months with a knee injury, David Accam came on in the second half - and prayers to the soccer gods that he didn’t tear his knee playing on the Gillette Stadium turf. Accam once again showed he is a man amongst boys on this team, using his speed to blast through defenders - and in one case, to be tackled by them. One could argue Gershon Koffie should have received his second yellow of the night after dragging down Accam from behind.

I wish I could tell you the Fire built on the energy and cohesion they showed in the second half in their weekday match in Vancouver, but social media seems to say that was not the case.

(Confession: I Missed the first 25 minutes after coming back from seeing Captain America: Civil War in theaters. Part of me was tempted to write a 500 word review of that film in this space, but alas. Watching this match after the movie was like spitting a loogie on top of perfectly good scoop of ice cream.)

Lee Nguyen put the Revs on the board in the 22nd minute after running unmarked unto the box off a short corner kick and putting a one-timer off the back post. Nguyen's goal was a clinical finish into the top corner, but it helps when the closest defender was somewhere in Rhode Island at the time of the strike.

The Rev’s sealed the victory in the 84th minute when Juan Agudelo worked the ball into the near post, then lofted a cross to a wide open Femi Hollinger-Janzen running into the box. Chicago’s Matt Lampson, whose quick reactions helped prevent the Revs from scoring an addition 2-3 goals, came out too far to cut off Agudelo, and left Hollinger-Janzen with his choice of where to place the ball in the wide open net.

I wish I could tell you that the Fire fought the good fight, and the Revs let them be after this. I wish I could tell you that - but MLS is no fairy-tale world. The Fire proceeded to do nothing worth writing about.

The Fire won’t have too long to grieve their fall into the bottom of the Eastern Conference, as they have another road match on Wednesday against New York Red Bull. One can hope the club won’t hit the big 30 in consecutive road losses, but it may take divine intervention at this point to eek out a road victory.