Jimenez's gift fuels the Fire, 1:0
September 6, 2008
Sometimes, it's easy to go from hero to goat. Diego Jimenez, whose play was universally praised the past two matches, did just that, gifting Chicago the ball and a 1:0 victory over Metro. New York's six-game unbeaten streak is now history, as they lost a chance to move into a tie for second place in the East and now sit six points back of Chicago.
Jeff Parke came back from his injury and Gabriel Cichero -- from his suspension, and with Kevin Goldthwaite out due to yellow cards, the new look defense had Jimenez on the left, Parke and Cichero in the middle, and Hunter Freeman on the right. Sinisa Ubiparipovic made the start for Mike Magee, who missed the match with a staph infection.
Just six minutes into the match, it looked like Jimenez would add to his recently-earned hero status, clearing the ball of the line. Sadly for him, that status would soon be revoked.
19 minutes in, Metro could have taken the lead, after an excellent through ball from Dane van den Bergh to Juan Pablo Angel, whose chip was saved by Jon Busch.
So we remained scoreless, until the 36th minute. This is when Jimenez tried to clear the ball... sideways across the box, so Chicago's Stephen King pounced on it, and made easy work to end Jon Conway's shutout streak at 380 minutes.
It was pretty dead for Metro until the 61st minute, when John Wolyniec entered the game for Juan Pietravallo. The Staten Island Ronaldo gave his all, like he always does, and helped set up Angel 82 minutes in, with the shot barely going wide.
Sadly, those two Angel chances were pretty much it for Metro tonight. And sadly for Jimenez, he gets to wear goat horns for the current week. But... sometimes it's easy to go from goat to hero. Even after tonight's loss, we can still be optimistic about the rest of the season, right? A tad? In theory?
Lineup: Conway, Jimenez, Cichero, Parke, Freeman, Pietravallo, Stammler, van den Bergh, Richards, Ubiparipovic, Angel. Subs: Wolyniec, Borman.
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