BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- Veljko Paunovic praised his Chicago Fire charges’ defensive resilience as the Men in Red earned their first shutout of the season in a hard-fought scoreless draw with Columbus Crew SC.
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Following the Fire’s opening day 4-3 home defeat to New York City FC, the Serbian called for improvements in his defense. So the result against Columbus offered testament to the new-found solidity which showed occasionally in the second half of that game, and more so in last week’s 1-1 road tie at Orlando City SC.
“You have to build your team with a good defense and then improve from that point,” Paunovic said. “We’ve improved defensively -- now the next step, possession, reorganization, and scoring.”
Paunovic lined up with a defense-minded 5-3-2 formation. He planned to exercise caution against last year’s MLS Cup runners-up, with Crew SC’s attacking quartet of Kei Kamara, Federico Higuain, Justin Meram, and Ethan Finlay capable of causing all kinds of problems.
However, the Fire restricted the visitors to just four shots on target and 12 in total, with Kamara being held without an attempt in the match. Goalkeeper Matt Lampson notched his first clean sheet in three starts with a confident performance, the highlight of which was a diving save to keep a second half strike from Finlay out.
Without the injured David Accam – who was out of the 18 because of a knee sprain – the Fire were robbed of their most potent and dynamic attacking threat. So it was no surprise that they managed just one shot on target (four in total) throughout the 90 minutes.
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Paunovic pointed out that he had previously started his team with five at the back: “We played this formation in the last game too until [Michael] Harrington got sent off. We played the second half against New York City FC in this formation, and we played against Portland in the [Simple Invitational] tournament during the preseason in the same formation,” he said. “This is our team. We play the formation that I believe is the best in order to get points, to win points, to win games, and our set-up is always to win.”
