BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – In his short tenure in charge of the Chicago Fire, Veljko Paunovic has shown great adaptability and a willingness to be flexible with his tactics throughout the course of a game.
And so it proved again on Sunday afternoon, as the Fire head coach quickly adjusted his initial 3-5-2 formation to a 4-2-3-1 to combat the impact of Orlando City SC’s evergreen talisman Kaká, who turned back the clock with a vintage display of attacking play to earn the visitors a 2-2 draw against the basement dwellers.
Kaká, who finished the game with a goal and an assist, had been giving Matt Polster a trying time at right wingback before Paunovic moved Johan Kappelhof – who started as part of a three-man central defensive unit – to right back and returning Polster to a more customary central midfield role midway through the first half.
“Obviously we had a lot of issues on the right side with Kaká, he’s very good, it was very smart by Jason Kreis moving him on the sideline and we struggled there,” the Serbian coach told reporters.
“But once we made our adjustments, switching to 4-2-3-1 and putting Kappelhof, our most experienced guy in defense, against Kaka we were able to stop him,” he added. “And when I say ‘stop him’ I know what I’m saying because it’s very difficult to stop Kaká, we all know who Kaká is, fantastic player, but I think he did a great job. He imposed himself, I think that’s what all the good players, when you see a guy who’s tough, who’s going to play hard, and he showed a bit of character, which we lacked before that.”
Paunovic has talked a lot about the process, the plan, and his desire to impose his game plan on the players at his disposal. However, despite taking an early lead through John Goossens in the sixth minute, Paunovic felt his players got a little “excited” and lost the game plan as the Fire fell behind, 2-1, on goals from Cyle Larin and Kaká before salvaging a point with a more focused and determined second-half showing thanks to a Razvan Cocis header in the 78th minute.
“I think we are all happy with the point today, I think we opened the match very well, scoring an early goal but then we lost the game plan in the first half,” he admitted.
“Then we conceded goals just by feeling too excited in the first ten minutes, having that early lead that we took and these are the things that we have to improve again, we don’t have to be afraid when we have a good result in our hands and we have to manage better with that. I think we pushed for the game, I think our fans at least can be happy about they can see their team pushing hard until the end, giving our best and that’s what I’m happy about.”
Paunovic also bemoaned his team’s lack of a killer instinct, as his men failed to capitalize on the 19 chances they created, eight of which found the target, as they pushed for the winner late on.
“At the end I think we were close to scoring the third goal, we just needed a bit more of that killer instinct that we’ve lacked all this year,” he lamented.
