Following the Fire’s loss to the Philadelphia Union last Saturday, goalkeeper Chris Brady texted a friend and former teammate who’d understand what he had just experienced. In the 90th minute, Brady allowed Joaquin Torres’ seemingly harmless shot from outside the 18-yard box to skip past him for what turned out to be the game-winning goal, and wanted to know how that friend dealt mentally with his own miscues.
On the other end of the conversation: Gabriel Slonina. A year ago, Slonina was the Fire’s teenage starting goalie and struggled at times during the 2022 season but worked past those stumbles.
