Fire's playoff hopes fading

Fire midfielder John Thorrington sat on the Toyota Park grass, hands clasped and holding up bent knees, trying to come to grips with the Fire's latest loss, 1-0 Saturday night to Seattle Sounders FC.

Inside the home team's locker room, forward Collins John leaned against a garbage can, seemingly deep in thought contemplating the nightmare that has become the Fire's season.

Desperately needing 3 points to maintain any hope for a playoff berth, the Fire (6-10-8, 26 points) came up empty again. The club has gone 362 minutes without scoring, running its winless streak to seven games.

Still, forward Freddie Ljungberg found reason for optimism.

"Today we played better than we've done for a long time," Ljungberg said. "We played really well. We created a lot of chances and we probably should've scored on some of them. Which is annoying, but that's how it is."

The goal came in the 88th minute, with the Fire pressing forward, desperate for a winning goal. Blaise Nkufo's shot deflected off the leg of sliding defender C.J. Brown, going toward the far post as goalkeeper Sean Johnson went toward the near post.

"I just thought it was unlucky," Johnson said.

"Unfortunately, because of how the table looks we had to go for the win in the end," Ljungberg said. "We took a lot of people and we conceded an attack in the 88th minute and it resulted in a shot and a goal."

The Fire heads to San Jose on Wednesday night for a nationally televised game. Six games remain on the team's regular-season schedule, and it appears doubtful the team can make the playoffs.

"Of course it's extremely hard now for the players," Ljungberg said, "but I'm very happy with the way the team responded with some meetings we had this week and how we stuck together during the game. "