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A week or two back, when rumors about the Brian Bliss joining the Fire were circulating, we here at Hot Time speculated upon the possibility of Dominic Oduro returning to the Chicago Fire if Bliss was to be hired by the club. Oduro re-joining the Fire was always a long shot, but it was fun to entertain fantasies of what the Fire might look like with Oduro's pace paired up top with Mike Magee's craftiness. Today, the Columbus Crew officially dumped a bucket of cold water on those fantasies as the speedy Ghanaian has signed a new contract with the Crew.
The deal is mutually beneficial to both parties. For the Crew, Oduro tied the Crew's highest season goal total by a player in the last five years with 13 tallies. With Jairo Arrieta being relegated to the bench and exiting the club at the conclusion of this season, retaining Oduro had to be top priority for Greg Berhalter, the Crew's new coach and technical director.
For Oduro, he can't thrive on his own and needs to have some one feed him the ball. Oduro needs a lot of chances on goal if he would like to replicate 2013. Out of the top ten goal scorers this season, Oduro had the third lowest scoring chance percentage (14.1%) and the fourth lowest percentage of shots on goal (39.1%). Stayng on a team with a creative player like Federico Higuaín will definitely make Oduro more effective.
In the end, it seems like Oduro might have finally found himself a long term home in Columbus, Ohio.
