It wasn’t the result the Fire were looking for to start an important stretch of three consecutive home games, but they did come away with their first point of 2018 in a 2-2 draw with the Portland Timbers this past weekend. It took coming from behind twice and offensive contributions from Bastian Schweinsteiger while playing as a center back, however.



Those circumstances weren’t ideal and the result came against a team playing its fourth consecutive road game to start the season. Following a tepid first half in which coach Veljko Paunovic chose their base 4-2-3-1 formation to start the match, the Fire were much better in the second half with dedication to more pressure on the ball and more tactical shifts.



The 4-2-3-1 that featured an out-of-place Tony Tchani playing in the middle behind Nemanja Nikolic and ahead of Schweinsteiger and Dax McCarty was abandoned around the 23rd minute. A switch to 3-5-2 with Schweinsteiger dropping back between Johan...