Fire, Union both gunning for full points at PPL Park

Soccer Betting Lines

09/10/2010 - Chester, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Chicago Fire have reached the point of no return.

Heading into Major League Soccer's Week 24, the Fire are in 11th in the overall league table, six points out of the eighth and final playoff spot with nine games to play.

"We're now at a point in the year that we can't keep letting these games slip away from us," Fire midfielder Logan Pause told MLSsoccer.com. "We need three points."

That starts Saturday when the Fire travel to take on the expansion Philadelphia Union at PPL Park.

"They're a very willing team," Fire forward Brian McBride told MLSsoccer.com about the Union. "[Manager] Peter Nowak's got them working extremely hard for each other. Out of the teams that we've played, they're probably right up there with the hardest-working. They definitely play hard from the beginning to the end. We have to be prepared for that, we can't have mental lapses or switch off."

The Fire (6-7-8) are coming off a scoreless draw in a mid-week league match at home vs. Toronto FC, and need to find a way to generate offense against a Philadelphia squad that has given up a league-high 38 goals this season.

The Union (5-11-6) have their own concerns, as they sit second-from-the-bottom in the Eastern table, and probably need to run the table to have any chance at the second season. The team is hoping it has more success than it did when it faced the Fire at Toyota Park earlier this season and lost 2-1.

"They have a lot of players that might hurt us, so we just have to look back at the game we played and see what we did wrong in that game and try to correct it," Union rookie Danny Mwanga told mlssoccer.com. "We need to look at what we did well and try to improve it in order to win the game on Saturday."

Philadelphia will probably be without defender Juan Diego Gonzalez, while defender Toni Stahl and midfielder Eduardo Coudet are questionable, and defender Michael Orozco Fiscal is probable, all with injuries.

The Fire will be without midfielder John Thorrington, while midfielder Marco Pappa and forward Brian McBride are doubtful with injuries.

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