BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. — This time, the mistake that put the Chicago Fire in a hole was an isolated incident, defender Gonzalo Segares insisted after the game.
Regardless, defender Austin Berry's mistouch led straight to a Deshorn Brown goal in the Fire's 2-1 win over Colorado on Wednesday, and the Men in Red went down for the 13th time in 16 games this season.
“A lot of it is our own fault, obviously tonight it was my fault,” Berry said afterwards. “There aren’t a lot of teams breaking us down and beating us, so if we shore things up from our end that should eliminate the early goals.”
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The Fire head into Columbus on Saturday (8 pm ET, watch on MLS Live) in the midst of their hottest streak of the season by far. For the first 10 games of the season, they didn't go consecutive games without a loss, but they've now gone unbeaten over their last six competitive games.
Of course, they've been forced to rely on comebacks in their last four games against MLS teams, with newly-acquired Mike Magee playing the role of hero throughout the streak.
Wednesday, though, seemed like progress because the Fire felt they played well early, despite the early goal.
“I can’t wrap my mind around [falling behind Wednesday] because I thought we were playing really well. We were creating chances and getting possession in the midfield,” attacker Patrick Nyarko said. “Giving up the early goals has got to stop. Personally, I think it was better [against Colorado] because we had control of the game.”
READ: Berry shakes off early mistake, plays: "The whole team had my back"
One of the few times Chicago jumped out to a lead came against Columbus early in the season. After beating the Crew in the Open Cup last week, the Fire will try to win for the third time in a row against their Midwest rivals.
And after dragging through three months with a punchless offense, they've finally have the confidence to compete, even if they fall behind.
“We definitely have the will to come back and keep fighting,” Segares said. “[Against Colorado], for some reason, we went down, but the only thing we can do is try to bounce back and we did.”
