It wasn’t a bucket of ice water poured over their heads, not that it wouldn’t have been welcome in the 93-degree heat, but Fire players got a little bit of a wakeup call early Wednesday night.
After a lackluster opening portion of its game with Kansas City, the Fire found itself trailing after 15 minutes. But it quickly righted itself and rolled past the Wizards 4-1 in front of 13,396 at steamy Soldier Field.
The victory was the ninth straight for the Fire (11-5) and brought it to within six points of first-place Los Angeles in the Western Conference. The streak is also the second-longest regular-season streak in league history. Los Angeles won 12 straight to open the season two years ago.
Kansas City struck first when Mo Johnston took advantage of a poor clearing and blasted a shot from 30 yards out. It was the first time the Fire had trailed in a game since May 30 in Los Angeles.
“I thought for the first six minutes we were very sluggish,” Fire coach Bob Bradley said. “We got going a little prior to their goal. It’s very nice to give up an early goal and come back.”
The Fire took advantage of a poor goal kick by the Wizards’ Mike Ammann in the 26th minute. Ammann’s kick banged off a defender to Roman Kosecki, who fed Ante Razov for the equalizer.
C.J. Brown gave the Fire the lead 10 minutes later, heading in a perfect corner kick from Peter Nowak.
After that, Roman Kosecki took over with two brilliant second-half goals. The first came off a deft pass into open space from Jerzy Podbrozny. Kosecki ran onto the ball and beat Ammann to the far top corner from about five yards out.
The second came from the corner off the penalty area in the 76th minute. Kosecki curled the ball over Ammann again into the far top corner.
“The last two goals they scored, some countries in France would like to have those,” Wizards coach Ron Newman said. “We got our rear ends kicked handsomely.”
The Wizards were without Preki and Uche Okafor, both playing in the World Cup. Paul Rideout, Refik Sabanadzovic and Scott Vermillion were also out with injuries. Nonetheless, Newman was impressed with what his team was up against.
“(The Fire) is the best team I’ve seen in this league,” he said. “I’ve never felt as helpless as I did tonight. Nowak just keeps running at you out of the midfield. The only way to stop him is to lock him in the lavatory and I thought of it but I couldn’t find the key.”
