Riding Out On A Rail

If it weren't for the Fire's history in the U.S. Open Cup, I wouldn't be that concerned about the Fire crashing out to a lower division team right out of the gate. It was merely an affront to tradition, mostly because we can't really have any more scathing indictments of how bad this team has become.

In the grand sense, yes, the team is bad and we should be able to beat a USL opponent. But the big picture is bad no matter how you look at it right now. So it seems prudent to look at whatever small indicators of progress we can find from the match.

On Thursday against Houston, there was no evidence of Juan Carlos Osorio's promise of quick passes through the midfield leading to attractive, attacking soccer. The players clearly hadn't absorbed anything of note from the first two or three days training with their new coach, and the lineup wasn't much different from what Dave Sarachan or Denis Hamlett had been working with.

Sunday was definitely different. No Diego Gutierrez in central defense. Bruno Menezes getting a start out at right back. C.J. Brown in the middle. And through at least the first half, the team seemed committed to moving the ball quickly. It wasn't perfect, but it was a clear step in the right direction. In the second half, the end of a stretch of five games in fifteen days seemed to catch up with the team, and they reverted to their bad habits. The goal was the epitome of bad luck, as Brown was trying to thwart the give-and-go and ended up completing it, although I still think Dasan Robinson would have done better than Segares covering the "go."

Losing sucks, no doubt about it, but there was finally something to build on in this one that should give at least some hope for when Blanco arrives and Chris Rolfe gets healthy. The downside is that Osorio doesn't know the league well enough to target anyone for a trade, and the front office hasn't displayed any facility in this area, either. For the most part, we're stuck with the horses we've got at this point, but the team isn't buried yet.

Yet.