Toronto FC and Chicago Fire Trade Blows in Wild 4-4 Draw Settled in the 91st Minute

Toronto FC went ahead four times at BMO Field. Four times, Chicago Fire either equalized or overtook them on the scoreboard. In the end, it finished 4-4, with the equalizer arriving in the 91st minute, in an MLS match that produced eight goals, an own goal, and a hat trick that wasn't enough to secure the win.

The pace was frantic from the start and never let up. Maren Haile-Selassie opened the scoring in the 12th minute with a low strike from outside the box off a corner kick, and it looked for a moment like Chicago Fire might cruise from there. But Josh Sargent had other ideas. In the 26th minute he equalized with his left foot after a through ball from Djordje Mihailovic, and eleven minutes later, in the 37th, he struck again to make it 2-1 with a right-footed finish off another corner. Toronto went into the break in front.

The second half opened badly for the home side: just three minutes in, in the 48th minute, Walker Zimmerman turned the ball into his own net, and Chicago Fire were level without so much as touching the ball in attack. But Sargent wasn't finished: in the 53rd minute he completed his hat trick with a strike from outside the area, once again set up by Mihailovic, to make it 3-2. Toronto held the lead for all of four minutes.

Chicago Fire answered with a lightning one-two: Haile-Selassie scored his second of the afternoon in the 57th minute with a finish through the middle of the goal, assisted by Robert Lewandowski, and Lewandowski returned the favor in the 62nd minute to make it 3-4 with a shot also down the middle, this time set up by Philip Zinckernagel. Chicago appeared to have flipped the script just as the match entered its final stretch.

The resolution came in stoppage time. With seven additional minutes signaled, Derrick Etienne, who had come on as a substitute, curled a finish into the top corner in the 91st minute off an assist from Dániel Sallói to make it a final 4-4 and rescue a point for Toronto FC at the death.

The numbers behind the madness

Chicago Fire controlled possession for longer stretches and generated, according to our post-match xG estimate, 2.504 expected goals to Toronto's 1.708, a gap explained in part by their 15 shots and three big chances compared to the home side's two. Even so, Toronto finished with more total shots and more corners in its favor.

Ahead of the match, our projections pointed to a tight contest, with a 43% chance for Chicago Fire, 30% for Toronto and 27% for a draw, along with a combined expected goals total of 2.94 for both sides. Reality nearly tripled that figure: eight goals across 90 minutes plus stoppage time, far beyond any prior expectation, though the final result, a draw, did fall within the range we had considered.

What the result means in the standings

In the Eastern Conference, Chicago Fire came into this match in third place with 38 points from 22 games (11 wins, 5 draws and 6 losses), while Toronto FC sat 11th with 26 points from 23 matches (5 wins, 11 draws and 7 losses), a 12-point gap between the two clubs. The draw leaves both teams with one more point than they had, but it doesn't change the bigger picture much: Toronto remains the conference's most frequent drawer, and this 4-4 only reinforces that pattern of failing to close out games.

For Chicago Fire, who had the match seemingly won on two separate occasions in the second half, Etienne's 91st-minute goal feels like two points dropped. For Toronto, coming back from behind twice and still failing to hold the lead speaks to a defense that remains this season's unresolved problem.