Sports Radio Service


		Chicago Fire hold on to beat the Earthquakes By Randy Leighton April 12, 2008

	Oakland, CA – The Chicago Fire shut out the San Jose Earthquakes 1-0 on their opening day today. 20,038 fans showed up to the McAfee coliseum to see the Earthquakes and the Fire go head to head. Chad Barrett knocked in a shot in the 19th minute for the only goal of the game. The Earthquakes came out strong in the first part of the game with several shots on goal. In the 4th minute of the game, Ivan Guerrero #23 showed some great moves on the outside, pushing a cross over to the forwards and it nearly found its mark as a goal, but hit the pole. The Earthquakes already had 7 shots before the goal from Barrett found the net. The Fire brought the ball down, had a quick shot on the goal which Cannon stopped but could not hold, it rolled out and Barrett came up and finished it off with the goal. With the momentum of their goal, the Chicago Fire controlled the rest of the first half. Cuauhtemoc Blanco played his usual brilliant soccer, including some really great passes to setup others for shots on goal. At one point, he even did his signature “ball hop” to clear the defenders move, but the Quakes caught him and took it away. The fans were happy to see the attempt nonetheless. The second half of the game was like a vision of the old Earthquakes before they moved. The earthquakes controlled the ball, played their tempo and setup shot after shot on goal. The Chicago Fire stepped up equally though, and the quakes could not get any nets. The last few minutes of the game saw great control and passion from the quakes. They really tried hard to get a tying goal put in the net. O’Brien (7) , Cochrane (15) , and Riley (4) were sending crosses into the middle, but the Fire defenders Robinson (32), Soumare(4), and Segares(25) were brilliant at stopping them all. There were four minutes of stoppage time in which the quakes had some really good attempts on goal. There was one flurry in particular that had Shea Salinas looking at the goal, took the shot and didn’t hit the ball in. It was a dramatic moment because the Quakes were the closest at that moment than in the entire game to putting the tying goal in the net. After the game, Earthquakes Coach Yallop said “I am proud of the way they played and we had a number of chances on goal. It was encouraging to see that the energy was there.” He continued to say that “We had a great opening day. There was a terrific crowd of fans, the team really tried hard and played well.”