The (Alleged) Embers Under the Fire

As a man who tries to tell the truth at least 80% of the time, I’m not going to lie to you: I turned off the Houston Dynamo’s romp over the Chicago Fire after Nate Jaqua scored. More than the tinges of paranoia telling me that Jaqua scoring some augurs the Apocalypse, I turned off the game because I knew the Fire had, at most, one goal in them against a defense as stout as Houston’s.

Naturally, this means I missed Joseph Ngwenya’s super-sharp goal - seriously, find the video on this one (easy to find from here); it’s worth the look (assuming you can find your way past the Wall of Beckham).

All y’all know by now that the Fire never scored: worse, the Dynamo added yet another goal after Ngwenya’s.

With the Dynamo on a run nothing short of ominous, the key talking point from this game concerns Chicago; specifically, the view I share with USSoccerplayers.com’s Ian Plenderleith that, “the Fire didn’t play too badly for the first hour.” That’s the take-away for me: the Fire aren’t doomed; here and there, flashes of a competent team show. For instance, MLSnet.com’s match report noted a slick back-heel from Thiago that freed Chris Armas in the area. I think "dead to rights" is overdoing it, but regardless as to whether Armas should have shot, he instead raced the end line with Chad Barrett shadowing him; in a move indicative of the disconnect between Fire players, Barrett took one seam while Armas, who pulled the ball back deeper than Barrett’s, took another. What looked like a near-certain goal fizzled to nothing....again.

The point is some decent parts are there for the Fire; someone only needs to connect them. Maybe this is Juan Carlos Osorio, maybe not. This isn’t to say the Fire can be made title contenders - I don’t think they’ve got the talent for that and their central midfield, with all due respect, is ancient - but they can become a respectable team before the season’s end.

And that should make some teams, particularly Eastern Conference teams, a little nervous.

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Crew & TFC: Who Scores First Goal of '07

A look at the current standings in Major League Soccer reveals that only two teams in the league have yet to score a goal: the Columbus Crew and Toronto FC.

The question is, which player for each respective team will score their team's first goal of 2007? The stakes for Toronto are higher still: who will score the first regular-season goal in Toronto franchise history?

I set up a contest for the Crew's mystery man in my space on The Offside and will give the winner of that the prize of kitsch assuming he/she is interested (see rules for participation, such as they are, over there). For the record, the example I posted there - "Joseph Ngwenya, v. DC United, 4/28" - stands as my actual guess on this; for convoluted reasons (the quality of New England's defense, probably some wishful thinking), I can't see Columbus scoring on New England (and I ruled out Open Cup goals for purposes of the contest).

I won't be offering a prize on the Toronto thing (hell, I'm not really offering one on the Columbus thing either), but I am curious and invite any guesses y'all may want to make: who will score the first regular-season goal in Toronto FC history? I'm just looking for names on this and here's my stab at it: Edson Buddle. Personally, I think Alecko Eskandarian has looked more dangerous, but I'm picturing this scenario where Buddle picks up the first off a rebound.

Anyone else want to make the attempt? Here are the rosters for Columbus and Toronto to help whittle down the candidates.

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