The month of May got off to a bit of a rough start for the Chicago Fire, who lost two straight matches to open the month.
But a pair of road victories snapped their winless skid, and they’ll look to continue their winning ways when they host Toronto FC Saturday night in the final match for each side before the league pauses for the World Cup.
The Fire (7-4-2, 23 points) are coming off a 2-0 triumph against Montreal last week, their final match of a stretch of three in eight days. They held onto their advantage as Montreal pressured late in the match. Three days earlier, they grinded out a 3-1 win against D.C United.
“In Montreal, we were at the end of a three-game week, and the mind can start to wander, the legs start getting a bit tired,” defender and captain Jack Elliott said. “But we did everything through the 90 minutes to fight and come out with a win there, too. So mentally, it was huge for us to win those games and get through those moments.”
Hugo Cuypers scored Chicago’s second goal against Montreal, giving him 13 goals on the season — four shy of his career high of 17, set last season in 33 matches. He has tallied in each of the 10 MLS matches he’s played in this season, becoming just the third player in league history to score in 10 consecutive matches.
Toronto (3-5-5, 14 points), meanwhile, enters the match looking to snap a winless skid and hit the break on a positive note. The Canadian side has lost three of its past four league matches and has not tasted victory since April 4, going 0-4-3 since.
“We want to win,” midfielder Alonso Coello said. “It’s been way too long since our last game coming out with three points … We really could use those to get back into the playoff picture.”
Most recently, Toronto fell 3-1 at Charlotte last Saturday. The team has been outscored 7-3 in its past two outings and hasn’t scored more than two goals since a pair of 3-3 draws against Austin and the Philadelphia Union on April 18 and April 22.
“We have very talented players, we’re waiting for a lot of them to come back from injury,” Coello said. “But even without them now, we’re still able to dominate teams. … (We have) to be able to execute when we get to those (dangerous) areas and have the trust in ourselves and in each other, and the confidence to be aggressive and score.”
–Field Level Media
