Chris Brady made four saves and the Chicago Fire snapped a four-match losing streak with a 0-0 draw at CF Montreal on Saturday night.
Most of Brady’s key interventions came late for the Fire (8-11-9, 33 points), who have now gone 403 league minutes without scoring while missing a chance to pull level with Montreal had they taken all three points.
Former Liverpool star and Swiss international Xherdan Shaqiri came off the bench in the 57th minute for Chicago in a move most likely made to manage his workload following recent international duty.
Montreal (11-14-3, 36 points) outshot Chicago 19-11 and each team had four efforts on target, but the home side’s chances were far more dangerous even if they came in short bursts.
Jonathan Sirois made four saves for the hosts to set an MLS record with his 9th clean sheet kept at home this season.
Unlike the previous eight, this one finished level but was still enough to keep CFMTL in eighth and with a three-point cushion above the playoff line.
Last season’s team scoring leader Romell Quioto entered in the 76th minute off Montreal’s bench for his first appearance since May 13 after dealing with a long-term hamstring injury.
Before halftime, Kwadwo Opoku’s header forced Chris Brady into a low diving stop in the 15th minute, and George Campbell’s similar effort from a corner rattled the crossbar in the 22nd.
Chances were sparse in the early moments after the interval before the home side finally began to test Brady on multiple occasions in the latter stages.
Opoku saw his promising attack down the left blocked out for a corner kick in the 74th minute. In the 81st, Chinonso Offor narrowly missed redirecting Bryce Duke’s shot at the back post into what would’ve been an open goal.
Offor finally connected with an on-target header in the 89th minute, but Brady reacted well with a low lunging save to his left.
He then denied Duke two minutes later on an effort created by his own miscommunication with a central defender. And Quioto hammered the rebound from another poor clearance directly at Brady, who still had to do well to get strong enough contact to push it over the bar.
–Field Level Media
