Saturday, D.C. United took the field against a team that in a lot of ways should have made for as straightforward a win as can be had in MLS. The Chicago Fire’s road record under Veljko Paunovic involved one win in twenty-two attempts, and they’d just played a home game mid-week. The Fire do not have a deep team, and Paunovic opted to ask his tired starters to give it one more go as a result.
Instead of exploiting the heavy-legged version of the worst road team in MLS over one and a third seasons, though, United were second best throughout and fell 1-0 to Chicago.