With the Chicago Fire missing four key starters—Xherdan Shaqiri, Rafael Czichos, Fabian Herbers and Miguel Navarro—it’s not a huge shock they lost 1-0 away from home Saturday against Orlando City.
It’s how it went down that stings.
Brian Gutierrez was sent off after receiving a second yellow for a routine, weak foul late in the first half, forcing the Fire to play a man down for the remainder of the match. Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson was clearly livid as the team walked into the tunnel at halftime. But after the match, he wanted to talk more about how Gutierrez received his first yellow—for standing in front of an Orlando free kick to delay a restart early in the match.