Fire’s play must pick up

The Chicago Fire was convincing, but not dominating.

The team’s 1-0 victory against Philadelphia in the home opener at Toyota Park kept the Fire (1-0-1, 4 points) in positive territory for the young season. Two games, 4 points, but against two weak opponents.

The schedule will get tougher, but after missing the playoffs the past two seasons, this is just what coach Frank Klopas ordered.

“Definitely, I thought we played well, we played hard and we got 3 points,” forward Dominic Oduro said.

“Four points, not bad,” midfielder Pavel Pardo added. “Six is a better number. ... We have to keep this quality.”

That’s the rub. Last season started well too, at least for a couple of games. The Fire needs to sustain success this year.

If there was any disappointment from the victory it’s that the Fire couldn’t take better advantage of 20-year-old Philadelphia goalkeeper Zac MacMath, who had struggled the previous two games. The Fire looked good, but against a bad team, the margin could have been greater.

“There’s always positives and negatives when you play a game,” Oduro said. “Nothing is 100 percent.”

Oduro scored his second goal of the season, well on his way to last year’s 12, this time using his head to knock in a hard-earned Marco Pappa cross.

“I was just right there, the ball was in the air,” Oduro said. “I’ve said before: I will score with any part of my body except my hands.”

And with regular goalkeeper Sean Johnson in Nashville with the U.S. U-23 team for Olympic qualifying, newcomer Paolo Tornaghi looked like he doesn’t want to go back to the bench, stopping two Gabriel Gomez free kicks in the final minutes to preserve the shutout. Tornaghi finished with 4 saves.

“We have now two very good goalkeepers, and this is important for the team,” Pardo said.

The weather might suggest July, but Klopas knows the calendar still says March. Nobody celebrates in March.

“We gotta continue to work,” he said. “This is early in the season. It’s a long season. If we want to get better and continue to win, the sacrifices we make in training, the work that we put in, the price that we pay, the little things that we do, we need to keep working harder and harder every day.”

Follow Orrin on Twitter @orrinsoccer.