This week is the last Fuego Friday of the season. The Foxes will be donning their red Fresno Fuego throwback kits, and we will get a visit from Sparky the dragon.

The game is at 7:30 on Friday, August 16th at Chukchansi Park. Real Monarchs will be making the trip down to salvage some pride after their 4-2 defeat at home on May 4th.

Real Monarchs

The Monarchs are not having the banner year they did last season, but they are recovering their season. They currently sit at 4th in the table with a game in hand against us. They have a record of 10-7-4 with half their wins coming in the last 6 games. They are on a good streak, and despite early-season hiccups, they seem to be making ground on the top 3.

The one factor we have in our favor is their away form. At just 2-5-3 when on the road, their away form shows some vulnerability that we can exploit. We have an excellent home form, and that should bode well for goals.

For you Stats lovers, the Monarchs have a good goal differential at +10, but they’ve still let in 33 goals this season about 1.6 per game. Their positive GD comes from some blowout matches at home. They, like OKC last week, are hard to predict because they don’t win against “the easy targets” and lose against “the strong sides” but seem to be all over the place with their wins and losses. Their weak defense will play in our favor, but only if we can do the work of keeping their strikers away from the box.

Who to Watch

The Monarchs are flush with goal scorers. Douglas Martinez and Maikel Chang have 9 goals each, and they are followed by Jack Blake with 6. Those three make up over half of all the goals the team has scored. They are a strong technical side that makes good use of bodies in the box. In their last game against Tulsa, three of their goals came off of rebounds.

Along with keeping track of their wings and keeping crosses out, we need to make sure that we don’t give Jack Blake the opportunity for a good free-kick. He is a deadly shot from outside the box, and he might make something of it if we give him the chance.

Our Play

Going into the game, we need to have a defensive mentality. The Monarchs are weak on the road, they score a lot of goals, and they are prone to defensive errors – that all adds up to make our plan clear. We need to stop them before they get anywhere near the box, shut out any crosses, and park the bus. Along with clogging their attacking third, we need to hit them on the counter and make the most of their defensive away form.

As always players like Cooper, Jackson, Casillas, Lawal, and Johnson will be crucial to moving the ball upfield quickly – the speed of our counter-attack will determine how well we do this game. If we can keep scoring like we have, I think we have a good shot at getting another win.

Predictions

The Monarchs are doing well right now, and that means there is a chance this game could go either way. I have faith in the Foxes and in the fact that SLC drops points away, so I think we will win, but it might be close.

I think the game will go 2-1 to the Foxes.

#SomosZorros