Fire vs. Real Salt Lake

By: Tom | May 26th, 2007

The Fire host Real Salt Lake on Sunday at 4pm (TV: Telefutura live, CSN 7pm delayed). This is a game the Fire, and in particular coach Dave Sarachan, really need to win. A three game homestand is exactly what Sarachan needs to get some results, save his job, and get the Fire back into a solid playoff position. Everything could be turned around very fast; a game at home against a winless team with a new, rookie manager is a good place to break this four-game losing streak.

The flipside, of course, is that any stutters will only raise the temperature to boiling point. According to the Trib’s Fire blog, the lineup will be interesting, perhaps a sign Dave’s decided it’s time to roll the dice; a sighting of Bakary Soumare possibly? Chad Barrett back on the bench? And how about this for a hell of an injury report:

OUT: DF Osei Telesford (L groin strain); QUESTIONABLE: FW Calen Carr (L ankle contusion/strain); MF Diego Gutierrez (L toe fracture); FW Chris Rolfe (L ankle sprain); PROBABLE: MF Ivan Guerrero (L ankle sprain); MF Thiago (R groin strain); MF Justin Mapp (L shoulder strain); GK Matt Pickens (R groin strain); DF Dasan Robinson (R groin strain); DF Gonzalo Segares (L ankle sprain) .

Well, with those kind of problems, it certainly could be an interesting lineup.

I’m going to be in the pressbox for this game. Nothing to do with this blog - but that won’t stop me attempting to post from the game. I doubt it’ll be worthy of being called a liveblog, but I’ll try to update whenever I can.

One last item: there’s an excellent article on Blanco in today’s Tribune.