The Fire won their third in a row and suddenly find themselves two points out of the playoffs. Xherdan Shaqiri was involved in two of the Fire goals, scoring the first and assisting on the third. It wasn’t Chris Mueller, who had his usual class performance. Instead, it’s going to Federico Navarro. He did assist on the Shaqiri goal, but he is also the reason Vancouver only got one goal in the second half. He was everywhere he needed to be to disrupt, destroy, and dominate the midfield, ensuring that the Whitecaps couldn’t string passes together. Without him, we’re talking about a completely different game. Because of that Fede gets our man of the match.
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