The Chicago Fire went in to the second leg of their two game series against DC United on Thursday night at Washington DC's RFK Stadium with a one goal advantage after defeating DC 1-0 in the first leg while the 2007 Supporters Shield champion DC United hoped to use their home field as an advantage to overturn the result.
The Fire started out the first half strong scoring two goals within two minutes. Chris Rolfe scored his second goal of the two game series in the 33rd minute while Chad Barret scored one in the 31st to open the scoring giving the Chicago Fire a comfortable 3-0 aggragate lead on DC United who had an embarrassing 45 minutes in the frist half of the second leg.
However, DC United did not give up that easy and increased the pressure on the Chicago Fire in the second half scoring two goals to equalize it making the aggragate score a much closer 3-2. This made it an extremely competetive second half--a big difference from the first 45 minutes- that gave DC United a chance taht many thought they wouldn't have after their horrible performance in the first half. These goals were scored for DC United in the 69th and 74th minute by Clyde Simms and Christian Gomez respectively.
With only one more goal needed for the home team to stay alive and force the match into extra time, DC United increased their pressure against Chicago. It appeared as if Christian Gomez scored the match winner to tie up the series aggragate 3-3 only to have the goal disallowed due to a hand ball.
With an aggragate score of 3-2, the Chicago Fire have not only eliminated the 2007 Supporters Shield winner and the best team in Major League Soccer, but they have also continued their playoff dominance over one of North America's most decorated clubs. The Fire are unbeaten in all seven of their postseason matches against United, winning six of them and one scoreless draw. This includes their surprising 1998 MLS Cup win in their inaugural season. During their last playoff visit to RFK Stadium in 2005, Chicago humiliated United 4-0.
Here is a youtube video with highlights of this exciting second leg between Chicago Fire and DC United:
Chicago Fire will now travel to Foxboro this Saturday to face off against the New England Revolution, who defeated the New York Red Bulls 1-0 to advance to the Eastern Conference Final. I will give a more in depth analysis of this match bteween these two archrivals in a later post.
DC United originally claimed home field advantage being the highest seed in the eastern conference, but since they were eliminated, the Chicago Fire had to wait for Saturday night's match between the New England Revolution (#2 seed) and the New York Red Bulls (#3 seed) to find out if they will be traveling to Foxboro or Giants Stadium for the conference final.
However, the end of DC United's season ended just like it started--with a winless streak. Despite an impressive comeback at the beginning of their season and accumulating enough regular season points to become the first MLS club to win the Supporters Shield in back to back seasons, DC United finished the season winless in six games. This included two regular season draws with the Fire and a 2-2 aggragate score against Mexico's Chivas de Guadelajara in Copa Sudamerica, which DC United was invited to due to winning the Supporters Shield in 2006. Chivas advanced to the next round of this South American club cup, despite the tied aggragate score, due to the South American Confederation's tiebreaking rule of doubling away goals instead of going into extra time or penalty kicks. DC United did have a chance to advance to the next round of the Copa Sudamerica after winning the first leg against Chivas 1-0 at home, but DC United was unable to keep this momentum going losing to Chivas in the second leg and eventually faced elimination at the hands of Chicago Fire, the #4 seed in the Eastern Conference.
DC United, despite their disspointing performance recently, will still join the winner of the 2007 MLS Cup in the 2008 CONCACAF Champions Cup after winning the 2007 Supporters Shield. This will give DC United a chance to prove that they are still team that they once were.
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