The Fire and Toronto FC are facing each other in a home-and-home competition over the next two weekends in matches that could determine whether or not one or the other can stay in the playoff race.



With the Fire in eighth place, four points behind Montreal above the red line and Toronto shockingly sitting in 10th, 11 points away from sixth, both teams are in need of points and immediate results. On Friday, the two Eastern Conference foes engaged in a player swap that would seem to benefit both clubs at the moment.



Toronto FC sent utility man Nicolas Hasler to the Fire in exchange for rookie attacker Jon Bakero and $50,000 in General Allocation Money.



The Athletic Toronto’s Joshua Kloke and The Athletic Chicago’s Guillermo Rivera broke down the trade from both sides with an eye toward how each player might help their respective new teams.



Guillermo Rivera on Bakero/Fire



The Fire gave up a lot on draft day to get Bakero. In...