{"id":243289,"date":"2025-09-21T06:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T06:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/243289\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T06:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T06:37:10","slug":"chicago-fire-blank-minnesota-united-3-0-to-maintain-slim-lead-for-final-eastern-conference-playoff-spot-chicago-tribune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/243289\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Fire blank Minnesota United 3-0 to maintain slim lead for final Eastern Conference playoff spot \u2013 Chicago Tribune"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Joel Waterman, Dje D\u2019Avilla and Philip Zinckernagel each scored, Chris Brady had four saves and the Chicago Fire beat Minnesota United 3-0 on Saturday night<\/p>\n<p>The Fire (13-11-6) have 45 points and a two-point lead over the 10th-place New York Red Bulls \u2014 who beat Montreal 2-0 earlier Saturday \u2014 for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota (15-7-9) is third in the Western Conference with 54 points, behind Vancouver (55) and San Diego (57).<\/p>\n<p>Waterman, who was acquired Aug. 20 via trade with Montreal, scored his first goal of the season in the 26th minute.\u00a0Andr\u00e9 Franco played an arcing free kick to the back post and D\u2019Avilla went up high for a header from the 6 yards out in the 41st \u2014 the 22-year-old midfielder\u2019s first goal in MLS.<\/p>\n<p>Zinckernagel paused as a defender went sliding by and then scored on a rising shot from near the penalty spot to make it 3-0 in the 70th.<\/p>\n<p>Dayne St. Clair had six saves for Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota allowed two first-half goals for the first time this season.<\/p>\n<p>Originally Published: September 21, 2025 at 12:10 AM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Joel Waterman, Dje D\u2019Avilla and Philip Zinckernagel each scored, Chris Brady had four saves&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":243290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,11222,53525,129739,5386,1818,93507,6656,129740,53526],"class_list":{"0":"post-243289","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-fire","10":"tag-chris-brady","11":"tag-dje-davilla","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-joel-waterman","15":"tag-mls","16":"tag-mls-playoffs","17":"tag-philip-zinckernagel"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115240910390230780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}