It was competitive until it wasn’t as Chicago Fire II rolled over Chicago City SC 6-0 at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview, Ill. in the Round 1 of the 2024 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.
The MLS NEXT Pro side featured a handful of players from its first team though they were largely buoyed by players from the Fire’s second team. USL League Two’s Chicago City featured players of local talent from the Chicagoland area as the team is not currently in season and many of the regular players were unavailable for selection.
City had the first chance of the match and Christian Marquez could have done better with his opportunity. Marquez got in behind the Fire II defense in the third minute but his on-target effort hardly tested veteran MLS goalkeeper Spencer Richey.
Fire II took the lead for good in the sixth minute with some help from Chicago City. Fire II’s Giovanni Granda played a cross into City’s penalty area and Aleksandr Labovic knocked the ball into his own net to give the hosts the 1-0 lead.
Fire II doubled the lead just before the halftime whistle when the 16-year-old Granda slotted a shot into the corner of the net after Michael Nesci found him in the middle of the penalty area, giving the match its 2-0 scoreline at the break.
Fire II removed three First Team players at halftime and that’s when the floodgates opened.
After a listless 20 minutes to begin the second half, Fire II came alive.
David Poreba collected a loose ball in the Chicago City penalty area in the 65th minute and controlled it well enough to hit a shot between the legs of goalkeeper Carlos Fernández to make it 3-0. Poreba teamed up with Nesci moments later as the future Indiana Hoosier made it 4-0 for the hosts in the 70th minute.
Harold Osorio, the player of the highest repute in the match, played the entire time and scored a lovely goal from a free kick in the 84th minute. Vitaliy Hluyt won Fire II a centrally-located free kick 20 yards from Chicago City’s goal and Osorio stepped up and bounced a shot perfectly over the hands of Fernández and into the back of the net to make it 5-0. Osorio said that he had practiced that bounce-shot free kick and wanted to be on the scoresheet after seeing his side dominating the contest.
“It was a good opportunity to score,” Osorio said through a translator. “Obviously, every player wants to score and I am no exception. I saw the chance, I saw that I was very close to the goal and I had to take the chance.”
To add to the shenanigans, the 15-year-old Hluyt added a goal of his own in the 86th minute with the assist going to 2024 MLS SuperDraft pick Jason Shokalook.
Fire II outshot Chicago City 31-5 and had 15 shots on target compared to only two for the visitors.
Fire II head coach Ludovic Taillandier was content with his side’s effort just three days after winning a MLS Next Pro season opener over FC Cincinnati 2.
“When we play the game in any kind of cup format, you play to win,” Taillandier said. “I told the guys that on this side of things they achieved, they’re completely objective. And that was good, it’s all about growing. We want to get better each game. We tried to work on our philosophy, our style of play.”
“We asked the players to also be ambitious in the way we want to win, not just on the results. And I thought halfway through, we said okay, we got two in the first, we need to do more than two for the second. They were speaking to each other on the field as well, we need to do better than the first half. But in general, we’re very proud of the guys.”
Taillandier was happy about the effort he saw from the young players on his squad, many of whom came up through the Fire Academy.
“We are very proud to be able to say that we had a lot of academic products on the field,” he said. “And I think that’s important to realize that we played this game at the start (with) four players from our Academy. U-17, U-19, from our academy, with more coming in the second half from the bench. And that’s also something very important to say.
“We are working with a vision and developing players from the Academy. And to see scoring goals and Vitaliy , at 15 years old on the field tonight, scoring a goal. It’s fantastic. I’m very proud of them.”
