Dor Turgeman Scores and Assists as Revolution Survive Chicago Fire Barrage to Win 2-1

Four shots. Zero corners. Less than 40 percent of the ball. On paper, the New England Revolution spent Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field getting buried. On the scoreboard, they struck twice in eight minutes on either side of halftime and then spent the rest of the day throwing bodies in front of everything Chicago hit.

The Revs beat Chicago Fire FC 2-1 behind a goal and an assist from Dor Turgeman and a tap-in from Peyton Miller, then held on through a Chicago barrage that finished with 22 shots and 13 corners. Efficient is one word for it. Annoying, if you are a Fire fan, is another.

The Counter Was the Plan

Chicago had the early pressure. Matt Turner saved from Philip Zinckernagel in the 11th minute, Robert Lewandowski had a shot blocked seconds later, and Carles Gil answered with a left-footed effort on the break that slid just wide.

The opener in the 39th minute came straight from the whiteboard. Jackson Yueill, starting in place of the injured Alhassan Yusuf according to the Revs, sent a long ball forward from deep, Turgeman won the race against Chicago center back Sam Rogers, and he beat Chris Brady low into the bottom left corner.

"We spoke about how much they like to push their wingbacks high, and we thought we'd have Dor isolated in certain moments to counter their counter a little bit. So, that was a tactical thing we were looking at," Yueill said.

Chicago coach Gregg Berhalter replaced Rogers with Andrew Gutman at halftime. Two minutes after the restart, it was 2-0. Turgeman broke again and squared it, and Miller had the far post all to himself for about as simple a finish as a striker ever gets. Per the Revs, it was Miller's 50th MLS start, making him only the fourth player in league history to reach that mark before turning 19. It was also his fifth goal of the season.

Chicago Lay Siege

Berhalter went all in at the 55th minute with a triple change, sending on Maren Haile-Selassie, Robin Lod and Jonathan Bamba. The effect was immediate. Within two minutes, Turner had saved a Zinckernagel header and Bamba and Haile-Selassie had both seen shots blocked.

In the 62nd minute, Lod laid the ball off at the top of the box and Haile-Selassie drilled a left-footed shot into the bottom left corner. According to the Fire, it was his team-leading eighth goal of the season and his fifth in five matches.

What followed was half an hour of one-way traffic. Lod forced Turner into a save in the 78th minute, Bamba missed twice, Turner saved a Lewandowski header in the 89th, and Jack Elliott nodded just over from close range in stoppage time. The Fire also had a second Haile-Selassie goal ruled out for offside late on, per the club. Djé D'Avilla's shot was saved three minutes into added time, and Lewandowski's final header in the sixth minute of stoppage time drifted just wide.

Stars of the Afternoon

Dor Turgeman took one shot, scored with it, and then created the second goal. Per the Revs, he now has seven goals this season, three in his last five games.

Matt Turner made five saves and stayed calm through 13 Chicago corners, which is roughly the soccer equivalent of reading a book at a rock concert.

Mamadou Fofana and Ethan Kohler anchored a defense that made 36 clearances. Head coach Marko Mitrović gave them the highest praise a coach can give a center back pairing: "I think that Mamadou and Ethan are actually a mirror of this team."

Peyton Miller scored, then picked up a yellow card 11 minutes later. Teenagers gonna teenager.

Philip Zinckernagel was Chicago's most dangerous player and its unluckiest. He took nine shots and put two on target, and the Fire credited him with a secondary assist on Haile-Selassie's goal. Lewandowski was kept to three shots and was caught offside twice.

The Turning Point

Miller's goal in the 47th minute. Chicago came out of the locker room with a fresh defender, and inside two minutes they were chasing two goals instead of one. When Haile-Selassie finally scored, it only halved the deficit, and the Revs had enough cushion to absorb everything that followed.

Stats That Matter

• Shots: Chicago 22, New England 4. The Revs put two on target and scored on both.
• Saves: Turner 5, Brady 0.
• Corners and crosses: Chicago won 13 corners to New England's zero and sent in 30 crosses.
• Clearances: New England 36, Chicago 10.
• Possession: Chicago held 60.5 percent.

What It Means

New England improved to 13-4-8 with 43 points and, per the AP, moved into sole possession of third in the Eastern Conference, 11 points behind first-place Nashville. The Revs say they closed a four-game road swing with nine points, and Mitrović, facing the club where he spent four seasons as an assistant coach, was proud of how his players handled it. "I'm just impressed with the way they recovered, the way they pushed, and their mentality," he said.

Chicago fell to 11-6-7 with 39 points. The Fire said they sit fifth in the East, one point behind fourth-place Charlotte. They were without Mbekezeli Mbokazi, André Franco and Anton Salétros, all listed with lower-body issues, and this came right after a 1-1 draw with Inter Miami in front of what the AP called a club-record crowd of 63,094.

Next up, New England return to Gillette Stadium for the first time since Aug. 23 to host Orlando City on Saturday, while Chicago visit Nashville the same day.

The Closing Take

Chicago will look at 22 shots and 13 corners and feel robbed. New England will look at two shots on target, two goals and three points and feel like geniuses. Both have a case, but only one of them gets to put the result in the table. Yueill called it "a really brave and strong effort," and that undersells how much running it took.

Stats from ESPN's match data. Postgame quotes and club notes as reported by RevolutionSoccer.net and ChicagoFireFC.com; additional context from the AP recap via ESPN.