Rock Bottom: Chicago Fire 2 - 4 Vancouver Whitecaps
by Stephen Piggott on Aug 8, 2011 2:23 PM CDT
in Fire Previews & Recaps
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Wow! Where to begin....
The Fire knew that Sunday's match was a must win. Instead of winning though, the team had their worst performance of the season, losing 4-2 in a game full of mistakes from both teams. The match was a terrible advertisement for MLS with dozens of misplaced passes, terrible refereeing decisions, and little creative play.
Everything that went right Wednesday night went wrong last night. The 4-2-3-1 was again deployed with the only change being Yamith Cuesta coming in for the injured Cory Gibbs. Unfortunately for the Fire, choosing to recall Cuesta instead of playing Anibaba was a massive mistake. Cuesta went on to have his worst performance in a Fire jersey, giving up a penalty and being at fault for the first Vancouver goal... and that was just in the first half! Dropping Jalil Anibaba who had a man of the match performance in Wednesday's game against Philly in his natural position of center back was a massive mistake by Klopas and one that quite frankly lost the game for the Fire. More thoughts after the break.
The back line as a whole were very poor, with Cuesta and Mikulic having horror shows and Logan Pause looking exposed at right back. As I said in my last review, Logan looked good at the back against Philly but one reason for this was because he was untested. Vancouver ran at Pause and he struggled to keep up with the pace of Vancouver's outside players. Mikulic and Cuesta looked lost, misjudging balls, falling over constantly and losing their marks far too easily. On the left hand side, Gonzalo Segares again struggled, but he was overshadowed by the performances of the center backs. Sean Johnson also had a very bad outing, something that surprised me because his form lately had been excellent. He let a tame shot bounce over him for Vancouver's second goal before saving a penalty at the end of the first half. He then poorly handled a Vancouver free kick pushing it into the path of four unmarked players who more or less walked the ball into the net for Vancouver's fourth goal.
Daniel Paladini and Pavel Pardo both had quiet games in the center of the park while Patrick Nyarko and Marco Pappa were unable to contribute much from the wings. Sebastian Grazzini was also ineffective and looked sluggish at times before being substituted early in the second half. Grazzini did provide one moment of brilliance for the Fire, playing a beautiful one touch flick through to Dominic Oduro who finished well for the Fire's first goal. Oduro looked dangerous, especially in the first half, but the midfielders were unable to get him the ball in good positions often.
One of the few bright spots was the introduction of Orr Barouch who worked very hard up front, pressuring Vancouver's back four and getting a goal. Barouch was one of a handful of players who actually looked like they wanted to be on the field yesterday. After each goal that the team gave up, the players just stared at each other in disbelief, while Frank Klopas sat motionless on the bench. The only other player besides Barouch that I saw who showed any sense of urgency was Logan Pause.
The post match press conference also didn't inspire confidence, with Klopas saying little of note and therefore indicating to Fire fans that there is really no action plan in place to get the Fire out of this slump. It is debatable, but yesterday's result could mark the lowest point in the Fire's on the field history. The team has only two wins in the regular season out of 22 games and sit a whopping 29 points back of LA who are on course to take the Supporters' Shield. With twelve games left, the Fire are now nine points from the last Playoff spot and are in serious danger of missing the Playoffs for the second season running.
A clear and detailed plan not only from the current coaching staff but also the owner Andrew Hauptman is now needed. This has gone well beyond a slump or a dip in form; it's a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately before it gets any worse. Thankfully the Fire have a week to take a long hard look at one another and try to sort this mess out before the Red Bulls game this coming Saturday. If last place Vancouver can put four goals past us, then I shudder to think what a team containing Henry and Agudelo can do. It can't get much worse than this, can it?
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I posted this in the comments of the gamethread last night...
something needs to be done, starting all the way at the top. It’s hard enough having essentially an absentee owner half a country away. It’s even worse when he rarely talks to fans except a Q&A session in preseason and the rare press release. Fire fans aren’t stupid. We know there are serious problems and a whole restructure of the front office or organization may be called for. Although this is not a fun time to be a Fire fan, at this point only winning can make us feel better, or at least a sense of direction towards getting back to where we are accustomed to. Andrew needs to step up and say something. I would be happy to hear his plans for the Fire going forward, and how hard it is (or should be if he really cares) for him to be going through this personally as the owner.
He owns the team, writes the checks, and should have as much, if not more interest, in the team than anyone. Although the owner is not always in the front office or on the field, ultimately leadership needs to come from the owner. And sitting in a posh tower somewhere in LA and not talking to us is definitely not providing reassurance or proper leadership IMO. To me, it looks like a millionaire playboy who has a toy. Andrew seems like a nice guy, and although he admitted he had no idea about the MLS or how to run a team when he bought them, I can look past that. At least I could in the past. It’s like Tom Ricketts for the Cubs. You don’t have to be an intimately knowledgeable person in a sport to own a team. A good owner knows this, and puts in place people that know what they are doing to make the team competitive. Even if the owner doesn’t know a soccer ball from a soccer shoe, if he has soccer people in place, it doesn’t matter. He writes the checks, acts as the ambassador of the team, and lets the people under him who he pays to do their jobs take care of the actual sport side of things.
And that’s where I think things are broken. I am sure Andrew has learned a ton about the MLS and how to run a team, but he clearly doesn’t have people in place giving him the info. he needs. If he does and we are still this bad, then it’s a crime. Any astute president or GM should have come to him by now highlighting issues and urging him to talk to the fans. Now is the time to do that, with the Fire at their lowest in franchise history. It doesn’t take a genius to know something is broken. So that leaves two options. 1. The people in place don’t know what they are doing and are not relaying info. that major change is needed (in which case they should not have their jobs), or Andrew is getting that info. and either is not listening, not caring, or ignoring it. I hope neither option is actually true, but if it’s not clear there are MAJOR issues that need to be fixed RIGHT NOW, then Andrew needs to sell up today. Something is clearly wrong.
My other concern with him is money. He doesn’t seem to want to spend lots of money. Hence why the dreams of going and signing that big European striker, DP, etc. seem about as likely as the Cubs winning the World Series. And I get that the pressure to be profitable is very pressing. But, if you are going to buy a sports team and try to always act on the cheap, then you shouldn’t buy in the first pace. Some owners are ok with this, but if you want to build a successful, winning franchise that does it on a consistent basis, you have to spend money. Billy Bean (GM of the A’s) I am not saying we need to turn into a Chelsea or Manchester City, but a good owner knows when to splurge and when not too. I don’t know if Andrew is willing to splurge when need be.
In the end, this is simply NOT ACCEPTABLE. Something MUST be done. Call me panicky or “sky is falling”, but this is beyond belief. Yes, there are more people at fault here in the organization than just Andrew, but he is the owner and everything goes up to him. Maybe he does have a plan for vast change. Maybe he will spend some cash, but just feels like the value isn’t there right now in the transfer window, etc. to splash the cash. Maybe this is eating at him like it is eating at us as Fire die-hards. But if so, we can’t tell. He needs to TALK TO US. Let us know he cares, there is a plan in place, and he will do everything to right the ship. Sitting in your office in LA is not achieving this.
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So I realize I left my Billy Bean comment incomplete...
he is the idea behind Moneyball as GM of the Oakland Athletics. What I was going to convey is that he does a great job of developing teams with small budgets in comparison to the bigger market teams. While he is successful at this, they also haven’t been winning World Series or even pennants recently. Why? Because they can’t or don’t spend the money necessary to go get that one big guy that can make the difference between a good team and a great team.
With Andrew, there is nothing wrong with developing talent and finding bargain signings like Gaston Puerari and Diego Chaves. We have young talent we are signing and bringing up, and all successful teams need a mix of developed talent and established stars. We need to be able to continue to foster young talent to feed the parent club. However, we also need to go out and get that one big player sometimes, one that can take a good team over the top. Even if it’s a little more than you want to spend, some owners will pull the trigger to try to get over that final hump. I just don’t see that with Andrew at all. Obviously this year it doesn’t matter, but I want an owner that is willing to make a bold statement when they feel it is needed sometimes too.
Hot Time In Old Town SB Nation's blog for Chicago Fire, Soccer, & Chicago History
Tradition. Honor. Passion.
by Ryan Sealock on Aug 8, 2011 11:19 PM CDT up reply actions
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