D.C. United take aim at surging Fire

D.C. United and the Chicago Fire will look to build off what could be watershed results when they meet Saturday night in the nation's capital.

D.C. (4-7-6, 18 points) scored on two corner kicks in the first half of a 2-1 upset at FC Cincinnati last weekend.

Brazilian Gabriel Pirani scored the first, then provided the final cross to Conner Antley on the second as the Black-and-Red snapped a six-match winless run in all competitions.

Now the task will be stringing together consecutive results to try to make up a seven-point gap between 12th-place D.C. and the nine Eastern Conference playoff places.

"Internally, we believe in ourselves to be able to go and compete with anyone," D.C. manager Troy Lesesne said. "And in order to get a little bit more of that confidence externally, I think we need to produce more results like that. And that's kind of the next piece of this conversation, for that to not be an outlier."

Eleventh-place Chicago may be one of the teams D.C. needs to overtake to reach the postseason. But the Fire are on their own restoration mission under former U.S. men's national team manager Gregg Berhalter.

Chicago (6-5-4, 22 points) earned a surprising 3-1 win at Orlando City last weekend, its fifth victory out of six in all competitions and third of four in MLS play.

Philip Zinckernagel scored his sixth goal of the season, then assisted Hugo Cuypers on his team-leading ninth and 10th tallies just a minute apart as the Fire raced to an early lead.

From there, it was a matter of attrition for a Chicago defense that ceded 26 shots to the host Lions, but only one goal.

"I think the guys fought really hard and got a great lead in the game, and they basically held on for the second half," Berhalter said. "But I think that holding on is really important, because it builds belief that you can do it, and I think it was a big step."

--Field Level Media