Fire U-17/18 team hurt by controversial red card, see hopes dashed by Players Development

By Curt Herron

The Fire Academy's U-17/18 team already had the cards stacked against them heading into Saturday's match against Players Development Academy.

After playing to a 1-1 draw with California Development Academy in Friday's opener at the USSDA playoffs, the Fire faced a must-win situation.

Things appeared to be going their way after they ended the first half with a scoreless draw, despite their opponents having a wind advantage.

Further good news came from the adjacent field where PA Classics and CDA had the same score, giving the Fire a shot to control their destiny.

But things started to become unsettled for the Fire about nine minutes into the new half, thanks to a controversial ruling from the referee.

Following a physical first half in which the man in the middle used talk instead of cards to keep order, he did an about-face on a key play.

Felipe Cortez, who rarely has been involved in aggressive play, was issued a red card after his foot banged into the chest of a PDA player.

In fact, Cortez had received just one card the entire season, a yellow, and seemed to be a candidate to receive his second in this situation.

Instead, he was done for the match and the Fire had to play a man down the rest of the way against a PDA squad that started to smell blood.

After PA Classics scored to take a 1-0 lead over CDA, it became clear that PDA could take control in the pool with a win, plus a victory by PA Classics.

The Fire did their best to try to get the initial score while preventing PDA from doing the same, but their luck ran out in the 81st minute.

That's when Christiano Francois got past defenders and then keeper Zak Allen, who had come out of the net, to connect on an open-net goal.

Chicago couldn't get the equalizer and saw its hopes of advancing to nationals dashed in a 1-0 defeat at Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas.

PDA (19-5-4) won its first two matches in pool play but had to wait to Monday to officially clinch its nationals berth, even though it already had beaten PA Classics..

It was obviously a tough pill to swallow for the Fire (11-7-7), who could have been in the driver's seat in the pool if they had prevailed.

The Fire meet PA Classics on Monday morning, and that match is only relevant if the Pennsylvanians win by four goals while PDA loses to CDA in its last match.

While PDA did drop a 3-1 decision on Monday, the Fire scored a late goal to claim a 2-1 victory over PA Classics.

In addition, the loss concluded a frustrating and hot day in the Metroplex for the Fire, whose U-15/16 team also fell 1-0 to PA Classics.

A sign of the inconsistency in the officiating was seen near the midway point of the second half when Luis Medina was elbowed in the face.

Despite Medina needing a few minutes to get checked out and to gather his senses again, the referee merely gave a yellow card for the foul.

As the frustration increased for Fire players, PDA kept the pressure on as it got off a series of good attempts that just missed the mark.

Shaquille Hamilton was just wide on an open-net try before sending a grounder to Allen while Peter Beasley cleared an effort by Francois.

The Fire responded with a grounder from Victor Pineda that was stopped by keeper David Giddings before Keaton Albert was wide on a liner.

PDA nearly connected in the 79th minute, but Noah Sadaoui's short try deflected off of the post, setting the stage for the match-winner.

Despite having the strong wind edge in the first 45 minutes, the New Jersey side had a tough time finding good chances against the Fire.

Perhaps its best opportunity came shortly before the midway point when Derek Luke fired a liner that was grabbed by the Chicago keeper.

Shortly before that attempt, Lalo Cuautle sent in a free kick which eventually resulted in an attempt from Cortez that was also denied.