Dallas Burn coach Mike Jeffries summed up the Fire’s 2-0 victory over the Dallas Burn on Thursday night as well as anyone could.
“I didn’t think tonight was a great night for soccer,” Jeffries said. And he wasn’t talking about the weather or the playing conditions at Soldier Field.
The last time these two teams met in a playoff game–Game 3 of the 1999 Major League Soccer quarterfinals–it was perhaps the most thrilling in league history.
But a hard-fought series quickly has taken on a different character. Recent matches have been more jousting than playing, with cheap shots given and taken.
The soccer in Thursday’s Game 1 of the MLS quarterfinal series was hard to find amid the 44 fouls, 10 yellow cards, one red card ejection and countless pushings, shovings, moanings and whinings. At least only 8,314 people were on hand to watch a very tedious contest.
The Fire leads the first-to-five-points series with three points from the victory. Game 2 is Sunday at the Cotton Bowl. Anything short of a Fire victory will force a Game 3 at Soldier Field on Sept. 29.
Carlos Bocanegra scored the first goal of Thursday’s match in what was easily the prettiest play of the night. Still, it came off a restart after a Dallas foul. Eric Wynalda found Bocanegra for a perfectly placed header. It was Bocanegra’s first playoff goal and his second goal of the season, his first coming April 21 in Dallas.
“I like Dallas for my goal total, but I don’t like playing them,” he said. “Sometimes the fouls get a little bit out of control, the pushing and shoving. It goes for our team too. We complain a lot after every tackle.”
The teams walked out for the game in a single file, a Fire player followed by a Burn player, and then joined together for a pre-game picture in a show of unity after the terrorist attacks of last week.
Once the game began, the show of unity was shattered immediately, as teams’ captains, Peter Nowak and Oscar Pareja, tangled in the second minute. Pareja, who seemed to be chasing after anything in a red Fire jersey, brought down Dema Kovalenko with a tackle from behind in the 15th minute.
Four minutes into second-half injury time, Kovalenko and Dallas defender Richard Farrer tangled before a Fire free kick. Kovalenko fell to the turf–he said Farrer hit him in the groin–and referee Gus St. Silva ejected Farrer. Farrer will be suspended for Sunday’s match.
Then Evan Whitfield picked up a loose ball at midfield and raced to an open Dallas goal–goalkeeper Matt Jordan had pushed ahead as an extra attacker for a Dallas free kick–and tapped in an empty-netter.
