Short-handed Fire prevails

Their numbers seemingly dwindling by the day, the few Chicago Fire players healthy enough to play pulled out a 1-0 SuperLiga victory against Pumas UNAM.

It was a little lonely on the Fire bench, where the home team dressed just four substitutes for the game because of a surplus of injuries.

"I think (equipment managers) Allan (Araujo) and Charles (Raycroft) flipped a coin to see if they could make the roster," forward Brian McBride joked, "but since they had already put the roster in ..."

A 35th-minute goal by Wilman Conde was all the Fire needed to get its only win of the tournament this season. Despite the win the Fire was eliminated from SuperLiga, as was Pumas. New England won the group, and Morelia also will go through to the semifinals next month.

Still, it was the Fire's first international victory in five games this season and its first victory of any kind since June 27.

"Stuff like that wears on you," McBride said. "People who say it doesn't, they're fooling themselves or trying to fool (the media). But it's more to do with making sure we try when we step on the field to put that behind us and focus on when we don't have a lot of the ball to grind things out and work extremely hard for each other, like we did today."

The Fire started Collins John and Tim Ward, both of whom are trying to work their way back to match fitness after extended stays on the sideline. Rookie goalkeeper Sean Johnson earned his first professional shutout win, making 3 saves.

"He's done very well," McBride said. "He's progressed throughout the season. The talent he has is there. We see it every day in practice, and he's done very well in these games."

"I thought we came out really strong in the first half, controlled the game really well," Johnson said. "Once we got the first goal we retained possession really well and took it into the second half. And they obviously stepped up the pressure. It was a little bit more difficult, but I think we stayed in our block and really made it difficult for them to break us down."

Conde's goal came off a Marco Pappa corner kick. Conde headed the ball in from 5 yards out, beating teammate Krzysztof Krol to the ball.