It all seemed so clear what was supposed to happen Saturday night at Toyota Park.
Once the Fire had given up their 1-0 lead on a 63rd-minute goal by Jaime Moreno and they got to stoppage time, all the Fire had to do was take a couple more pushes to score the game-winner, and if nothing came out it, accept the tie. Sure, the 6-2-1 Fire should have beaten the 3-7-1 United at home, but ties happen.
Instead, United forward Luciano Emilio scored in the second minute of stoppage time on a counterattack -- with United down a man -- and the visitors ran away with a 2-1 victory.
All of the Fire's losses this season have come at home.
"It is 1-1 late in the game, we are at home, we want to get the second goal but we have to be smart, too," Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "You've got to have cover. We can't be caught one-on-one like that in the back. In this game, you (should) come out with a point. It is a lack of discipline on our side that everybody went forward."
The Fire took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Chad Barrett in the 27th minute on a play that was pure Cuauhtemoc Blanco. D.C.'s Santino Quaranta sent a back pass but Blanco snuck up from behind the defenders and took possession. Although he was behind the defenders at the time, he was not offside because the ball came from Quaranta. Blanco waited for Barrett to make his break for the through pass down the middle and he knocked it past United goalkeeper Zach Wells.
But before the half was out, United came close on a number of occasions, twice making quality stops on Fred.
"If not for Jon Busch, the score would have been worse," Fire coach Denis Hamlett said. Said Busch: "Nobody is going to remember the saves,"
In the 55th minute, Prideaux and United midfielder Marcelo Gallardo were sent off with red cards after getting into a tugging match in the Fire's penalty area. Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch called attention to the incident to referee Baldomero Toledo, who asked for assistance from fourth official Jasen Anno.
"They got into it, and Brandon stepped over him, and Gallardo grabbed his leg," Busch said. "Brandon kind of pushes him to get off of him, and Gallardo gets up and head-butts him. I called attention to it."
Toledo's decision was to send both of them off.
"The ejection hurt us more than it hurt them," Fire defender Diego Gutierrez said. "We lost our shape a little bit and we couldn't find it."
Hamlett immediately inserted defender Dasan Robinson into the game for Thorrington to restore some defensive presence (he had brought on Calen Carr for Justin Mapp at halftime after Mapp suffered a head injury in the first half). But the Fire defense still did not stand up.
In the 63rd minute, Emilio dribbled in from the right side against two Fire defenders, cut back to the middle and fired a shot that glanced off Busch's glove to the foot of Jaime Moreno for the equalizer.
United went a man down in the 88th minute when Bryan Namoff received his second yellow card in four minutes, but with four minutes of stoppage time, United took advantage of the Fire's advances.
"You have to push forward in a conservative way," Gutierrez said. "At the end of the day, a tie is not the worst. It's not what you want, but it is not a loss. We lost our shape, we made a couple of bad decisions going forward, and our defense could have been better on both goals. Our one-on-one defense let us down in two critical times."
"I think we got excited pushing forward," Hamlett said. "But we got burned on that play."
Kent McDill is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
