The Chicago Fire are maintaining a positive and upbeat attitude heading into Saturday's critical second leg of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the New England Revolution. Now they just need to translate that into capitalizing on their run of play and set pieces as they host the Revs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Toyota Park (game televised on Fox Soccer Channel).

"We knew we would have to win when we came back home, regardless of what happened in New England," Fire goalkeeper Jon Busch said. "We put ourselves in a little bit of a hole, but you know what? We're OK."

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AP Photo/Adam Hunger

The Fire won't be able to afford to miss too many chances Saturday against the Revs.

The Fire lost the first game of the series 2-1 at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., so Chicago has some work to do in swinging the aggregate score. Fire defender C.J. Brown thinks New England is the team in the hot seat, though.

"The pressure's on them because they're winning, and they've got to keep the win," Brown said. "We're getting a second chance to make something happen, and for them, they need to hold on to this lead. And it's hard to hold on to leads in this league, I think."

Fire coach Denis Hamlett regularly has preached the importance of solid play in both the offensive creation and defense of set pieces, and that is where the Fire fell short in Game 1.

"It's finishing your chances, doing better in our box on their set plays, because we gave them two goals off of set plays," Hamlett said. "The run of play, for the most part, we handled the situation being the away team. We limited them to not too many chances. We've got to take what we did well in that game and what we've done well in the past and make sure now that we do it consistently for a longer period of time."

The Fire are expecting a large and vocal crowd at Toyota Park. That element is a possible advantage in Chicago's favor, as is the playing surface.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to play soccer this time," Busch said. "On that turf -- no disrespect to [the Revolution] or their facility -- but you can't really play a lot of good soccer up there. The turf's hard, it's bumpy and it hurts. I tell you what, it hurts like hell when you land on it."

The Fire had only two shots on goal in the opener, and Revolution goalkeeper Matt Reis was only mildly tested. There were attempts by Chicago's Brian McBride and Baggio Husidic that hit the frame, so the tone of this series' second leg would be much different if the trajectory of those shots had been a few inches farther inside the post and crossbar.

On the injury front, Fire defender Gonzalo Segares was listed as questionable on the MLS injury report Friday night with a right knee sprain he suffered in the second half of Game 1 of the semifinal series. Also questionable is defender Wilman Conde, who is suffering from lingering pain in his right hip. As of midweek, Conde still was not training with the Fire.

For the Revolution, forward Edgaras Jankauskas still is listed as questionable from an illness that forced the Revs to take him out of the opening game in the 52nd minute.

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