Nashville may proudly boast the stingiest rearguard in the 2023 MLS season, but keeping the back door shut away from home has not been their forte in recent weeks, and nor has taking three points home from rival territory.
Zimmerman's absence will do the visitors no favours either, but Nashville are yet to suffer defeat to the out-of-sorts Chicago Fire, who would likely accept another home stalemate against the Boys in Gold but may lack the firepower to attain such a result.
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Chicago Fire win with a probability of 40.57%. A win for Nashville SC had a probability of 31.73% and a draw had a probability of 27.7%.
The most likely scoreline for a Chicago Fire win was 1-0 with a probability of 11.9%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 2-1 (8.33%) and 2-0 (7.6%). The likeliest Nashville SC win was 0-1 (10.21%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (13.04%). The actual scoreline of 1-0 was predicted with an 11.9% likelihood. Our data analysis correctly predicted a 1-0 win for Chicago Fire in this match.
0.07) 
-0.01) 
