2020 MLS Regular Season – Week 14
Chicago Fire FC vs. Atlanta United
Soldier Field – Chicago
September 27 – 7:30 PM ET
STREAMING: MLS LIVE on ESPN+ in US
LOCAL TV: FOX Sports Southeast, WGN-TV
Chicago Fire FC and Atlanta United snapped long winless streaks in the midweek and will try to build off that momentum when the Eastern Conference foes square off Sunday night at Soldier Field.
Fire FC (3W-7L-3D) are coming off a 4-0 victory over the Houston Dynamo at home, while Atlanta (4W-7L-2D) defeated FC Dallas 1-0 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Fire have won two of the three all-time meetings in the Windy City, including a decisive 5-1 victory last July with CJ Sapong striking for a brace.
Chicago Fire FC
The breakthrough Raphael Wicky was expecting finally came Wednesday night courtesy of a stunning 4-0 win over the Dynamo. Robert Beric scored his third goal in as many matches in the 15th minute and the Fire led by three goals before halftime.
"It was a really, really good performance, it was a mature performance," Wicky said. "I knew that going into the second half, we can't expect to see the same half as the first half. I mean, the first half was almost perfect. I think Houston didn't really have much going forward. We were really aggressive, well organized, we were really good with the ball, we had chances to score even more than three goals."
- Updated team roster
- Injury Report:
- OUT: Jeremiah Gutjahr (M) - knee injury
- OUT: Kenneth Kronholm (GK) - knee injury
- OUT: Luka Stojanović (M) - knee injury
- OUT: Przemysław Frankowski (M) - undisclosed injury
- QUESTIONABLE: Johan Kappelhof (D) - hip flexor
- Suspended: None
- Suspended after next caution: Francisco Calvo (D)
- International duty: None
Atlanta United
Atlanta United broke out of a six-match winless streak, which included three consecutive defeats, with a 1-0 win over FC Dallas Wednesday. Veteran Jeff Larentowicz scored the lone goal, a 55th-minute penalty kick, to secure Atlanta's first win since August 22. A team meeting Sunday proved to be the turning point.
“The message in that meeting was not one of finger pointing, it was a league like this, the margins are really fine,” Larentowicz said of their Sunday meeting. “The difference between teams are not usually very big. When you go winless in six or five or whatever it was, it can feel like the gap is pretty large.
“But when you watch the mistakes back, you see, man, this goal came from a 50-50 at midfield that we lost and then things just dominoed from there. Or one person makes a decision at the wrong time and we get opened up. If we can kind of rectify that, it doesn't create a goal. So it's really just recognition that those differences between winning and losing are fine and you have to kind of look at the mistakes so that you can change those.”
- Updated team roster
- Injury Report:
- OUT: Josef Martinez (F) - ACL injury
- OUT: Cubo Torres (F) - knee sprain
- Suspended: None
- Suspended after next caution: None
- International duty: None
Series Matchup at Fire FC
- Fire FC: 2 wins, 8 goals
- Atlanta: 1 win, 2 goals
- 0 draws
Officials
- Referee: Kevin Stott
- Assistant Referees: Eric Weisbrod, Benjamin Hall-Volpenhein
- 4th Official: Lukasz Szpala
- VAR: Hilario Grajeda
