Some items of interest in wake of the Fire getting drubbed 4-1 by Toronto FC on Saturday.
Bone’s Debut: Fire midfielder Corben Bone, who the Fire selected with the 13th pick of this year’s SuperDraft, finally made his debut on Saturday. The Wake Forest alum, who missed a significant portion of preseason with a knee injury, came in the 51st minute of play, replacing fellow midfielder Marco Pappa.
“It was fun,” said Bone told MLSsoccer.com on Sunday morning. “I was happy to get out on the field finally and see what the game really felt like. Unfortunately, the result wasn’t what I wanted on my debut and I’m obviously a little upset [about that]. I tried to help the team as best I could coming on, but it just didn’t work out. Overall, it was a good feeling being on the field again and getting those game instincts back.”
Bone didn’t have too much of an impact on the match, but he feels he performed fine in his first foray into MLS action.
“I didn’t lose the ball too many times, I didn’t make many mistakes and I thought I connected with most of the guys and made some good plays,” he said. I got a shot off, it wasn’t a great shot but I still got it off. It wasn’t a spectacular performance from my standpoint, I think I could do a lot better and I plan to in the future, but for my first 40 minutes in MLS I thought I did alright.”
Pause returns: After missing the Fire’s last four games with a knee injury, midfielder Logan Pause returned to the starting 11 on Saturday against Toronto. The 28-year-old went the full 90 at BMO Field, scoring his second career MLS goal in the process.
Pause’s strike was a pretty one, as he unleashed a 35-yard right-footed blast into the top right corner to cut Toronto’s advantage to 2-1.
Pause’s inclusion in the lineup did appear to create some personnel issues for Carlos de los Cobos. The Fire head coach, who used a 4-5-1 formation in the Fire’s previous three games, started Saturday’s match the same way before bringing on Collins John for Peter Lowry in the 35th minute, switching to a 4-4-2 in the process.
Needless to say, that move didn’t pan out for the Fire and it will be interesting to see what midfield combination de los Cobos starts in next Saturday’s match at Kansas City.
The Windy City?: The conditions in Toronto on Saturday afternoon were far from perfect. Rain, wind and cold crashed down on BMO Field, affecting the game in a major way.
“Obviously the wind was pretty bad,” said Bone. “The conditions weren’t the best. It was windy, it was a little bit rainy, but at the end of the day you can’t complain about the conditions. You just got to go out there and try and get the victory and unfortunately, we didn’t do that.”
Toronto dealt with the sloppy conditions better than the Fire did, taking advantage of having the wind at their backs by scoring a wind-aided goal in the first half. TFC also did a much better job of attacking with the wind in their faces, scoring three goals while going into the wind in the second half.
