MONTREAL -- Bastian Schweinsteiger battled through the pain inflicted by a red-card foul to score and make the difference for a rare Chicago Fire road win that ended their four-game losing streak.
Schweinsteiger scored in the 59th minute to lead Chicago to a 1-0 victory against the Montreal Impact at Stade Saputo on Saturday. The German veteran did so despite being fouled and injured by debuting defender Deian Boldor, who was sent off in the 50th minute after head official Baldomero Toledo used Video Review to deem the Romanian's challenge on Schweinsteiger worthy of a red card.
"I think for us it was more important that we kept the ball in certain moments of the game," said Schweinsteiger, who had an ice pack on his right calf after the game. "We tried to be dangerous, we tried to play a little bit different than usual, and it was actually working well. When you lead 1-0 it doesn't matter when you play against 10, it's not easy, so I'm happy that we could win away and make three points."
Schweinsteiger said it was tightness in his right quadriceps muscle that forced him to leave the game in the 79th minute. Chicago coach Veljko Paunovic, meanwhile, praised his star midfielder for Saturday's decisive goal as well as coolness in responding to the boos that rained down on him for perceived embellishment following the game-changing foul from Boldor.
"He lifted the guys' spirit and he changed the game, and it was very important," Paunovic said. "I'm very happy that he scored today and I absolutely support Basti because he's the sportsman No. 1 in the world and I don't doubt on that action on his behavior. You could see that we had to sub him because of that play, so it was very important and I hope that in the future we can see on the big screen what actually happened so the people understand better that kind of situation."
Despite having the man advantage, Chicago were pressured by Montreal late in the match. Impact midfielder Ignacio Piatti had a shot strike the left post in the 80th minute, and Fire goalkeeper Matt Lampson swallowed another Piatti effort five minutes into injury time.
Nonetheless, Chicago held on for the victory.
"The last 15 minutes we've got to keep the ball, we've got to control the game," Lampson said. "I think a lot of [our late struggles came] from Bastian coming out because he's our field general, he's going to control everything and he's going to get us up the field.
"But you're not going to win pretty every time and credit to our guys because they battled all night. We had guys coming back from injury to play 90 minutes, and come in from injury and make serious challenges. It's a full team effort that won us the game tonight and I'm really proud of the guys and I think we deserve three points on that."
