Carr's return a triumphant one, leads Fire past Revolution

Welcome back, Calen Carr.

Carr entered Wednesday night's match as a second-half substitute for his first playing time of the season and notched the game-winning goal in the Chicago Fire's 2-1 victory against New England at Toyota Park.

"I've been out for a long time, been on the sidelines watching for so long, that to get out there and to be a part of the team again, in my first game back to score the game-winner and for the team to win, hopefully it's going to give us a big boost going into the next few games," Carr said.

The speedy forward missed the first half of the season with a persistent quadriceps injury suffered at the end of preseason training in Mexico.

Carr's goal came in the 85th minute. He took a Freddie Ljungberg pass and dribbled down the left sideline, then cut in along the top of goalkeeper Matt Reis' penalty area, skimming a 20-yard shot inside the near post just out of Reis' reach.

"I've basically just been trying to move off Freddie," Carr said. "He controls the game great. He got the ball and I just drifted out wide to the left. He played a great ball ahead of me and I just tried to run at my defender, put him on his heels. I cut inside and was originally going to go to the far post and saw the defender coming, so I decided to come back across the face of the goal, and thankfully it went in."

The Revs scored the game's first goal in the 16th minute when Fire defender Wilman Conde slipped and Marko Perovic stole the ball. Perovic went 1-on-1 with rookie goalkeeper Sean Johnson, slotting the ball into the net.

The Fire evened the game in the 32nd minute. Brian McBride collected a loose ball at the top of the New England penalty area and slid a pass off the leg of defender Darrius Barnes to Baggio Husidic. Husidic calmly beat Revs goalkeeper Matt Reis to the far post.

It was a typically hard-fought match between the two teams. The Fire (6-5-6, 24 points) and Revolution combined for 7 yellow cards, 5 to the Revs, and New England (6-10-3, 21 points) led in fouls 18-3.

"Games against New England are always physical," said left back Gonzalo Segares, seeing his first action since returning to Chicago from a stint in Cyprus. "They were trying to gain the midfield through their physicality, but we moved the ball around and made it hard for them to get it. ...

"These games against New England are a good rivalry. They needed to win to gain points, we both needed to win, and it was just going to be a dogfight."

Newly acquired Nery Castillo got his first Fire start but showed plenty of rust and left the game at halftime.

The Fire, undefeated in three August games after a difficult July, travels to Houston on Saturday night.