Fri Jul 11 16:33:02 2008

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TFC, Fire to battle for Eastern positioning at Toyota Park

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Bridgeview, IL (Sports Network) - When Toronto FC and the Chicago Fire meet at Toyota Park on Saturday, they will be battling for more than positioning in Major League Soccer's Eastern Conference table.

The two squads, which have identical 6-5-3 records, will be battling to improve upon recent streaks of futility. The Fire, who were at the top of the league after a 5-1 win at New York on May 25, are winless in five since. Toronto, which is still unbeaten at home this season, is just 1-5-0 on the road, where it plays 10 of the final 16 league fixtures this season.

The Fire are coming off a 2-2 draw at Columbus last week in which they blew a 2-0 lead, adding to the disappointing stretch.

"It's disappointing," Chicago coach Denis Hamlett said. "We had such a good start to the game, got two goals and then to give away that first goal it does feel like a loss. But then again, given our stretch we had where we couldn't score goals and we got two we have to draw some positives whenever you go on the road. Our guys are [ticked off] because we thought we had three points in the bag and let it slip away."

"We didn't do a good job killing the game," Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "At times we did ... 60, 70, maybe 80 minutes we got a hold of the game and started knocking it. If we had continued doing that defensively we would have ended up with three points instead of one. At the end of the day it was a point on the road. It was a great game. Both teams had chances to get the third."

The Fire, which still own the top defense in the league statistically, allowed two goals in a game for the fourth time in their last seven league matches by allowing the Crew pulled level.

"At times we didn't make the right decisions," Hamlett said. "As [the Crew] were pushing that leaves them open to counters. We didn't do well with that. ... If we could have done better with those counters maybe we would have gotten that third goal and closed the game out."

Toronto is coming off a 2-1 loss at New England in its last league fixture.

"New England is a good side, that's why they're at the top of the league and have been in the playoffs the last couple of years," TFC coach John Carver said. "I said to the guys before we went out there, 'Today is about a benchmark - today is the benchmark of how far we have come,' and I'm standing here now really disappointed because I thought we could have gotten something out of the game, and deserved something from the game."

Despite the loss, Carver is optimistic his team can bounce back.

"We've got players that can win games for us if we get players in the right areas," Carver said. "For long periods of the game, we didn't get them in the right areas. We had chances. If we've got a guy who can put the ball in the back of the net, it might be a different story."