everything is going to plan, right?
"I thought we were on track on that," said midfielder Justin Mapp.
"I thought we did some good things in the first half," Osorio said.
Mapp exhibited chemistry with Blanco despite playing in their first match together. Everything was going just fine. But apparently something happened during the halftime team talk from Wizards coach Curt Onalfo.
"They came out with a good mentality in the second half," Mapp said.
The Wizards pulled level through a Sasha Victorine goal. Then came what was possibly the turning point of the match. Fire defender Gonzalo Segares was issued a yellow card for a tackle from behind, just 14 minutes after seeing a first yellow card, and referee Baldomero Toledo put the Fire a man down.
"The referee went too quick with the second yellow card for Segares," Osorio said.
Two minutes later, Wizards forward Scott Sealy scored to put the Wizards ahead for good.
There are positives that the Fire can take from this match. The ultra-quick Mapp makes a formidable combination with Blanco. Blanco seems to make everyone around him better, making the passes that find players breaking free.
"I think it makes me and everyone else better. He just brings so much experience and talent that everyone just feeds off of it," Barrett said. "I try to learn from him as well as playing off of him. The balls that he plays makes all the strikers think that they will get the ball from him. It makes everyone run harder."
What Osorio would apparently like to see in his vision for the future of the Fire is to have tight matches with just a few goals scored. That defensive philosophy was very effective in the first half of the match.
Blanco definitely has drawing power. The Arrowhead Stadium attendance of 12,468 was one of the largest crowds for a Wednesday match. And the crowd erupted the first time he touched the ball.
"I was happy because the crowd was in favor of my team," Blanco said through an interpreter.
Thomas Foote is a contributor to MLSnet.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its clubs.
