Fire Year-in-Review: Fix It, Joe!
The below tweet (we’re not calling it by its current name) was made before the Chicago Fire’s home match against Inter Miami:
#cf97 #CHIvMIA pic.twitter.com/og4JzzyYIt
— Windy City Soccer (@windycitysoccer) October 4, 2023
Yes, the Fire did defeat Inter Miami before a sellout crowd that night, but that was just one of two wins in the eleven league matches after Leagues Cup (2-7-2) and the Fire scored just three goals outside of this match in the last 11. Eight of the eleven matches, including the last two against Charlotte and NYCFC, saw the Fire fail to score.
This is a culmination of the Fire’s constant failure to advance on the soccer pitch. This reporter has stated in the past that sporting director Georg Heitz and technical director Sebastian Pelzer should be sacked. After four seasons, Major League Soccer’s equivalent of Gar-Pax has not produced a team that has made the playoffs in the past four seasons. This team has not made the playoffs in the 12 of the last 14 leading Fire fans to believe that Joe Mansueto’s ownership of the club has not changed things for the better at all (at least on the soccer pitch).
Xherdan Shaqiri was the Fire’s Charizard. For those who do not follow Pokemon, he would perform during a high profile match, but not as much when there were not as many people in the seats or attention towards the match. His numbers weren’t awful in the two years with the Fire, but they do not live up to the $8 million salary he’s making.
The Fire scored a paltry 39 goals in 34 league matches. That was indeed as many as last year. It’s not the best optics when your leading goalscorer was your #7 (Maren Haile-Selassie with six). Jhon Duran was sold after 2022 and the Fire have yet to do anything discernible with the transfer money from that sale or that of Gaga Slonina. Yes, they had the fifth highest payroll and the three highest payrolls (Miami, Toronto, and LA Galaxy) also didn’t make it, but nine of the bottom ten payrolls did and they must be doing something right when they include three of the four best teams in MLS. It leads to a conclusion that the Fire have not spent wisely. That falls on Heitz and Pelzer and they should take the fall for this latest failure.
Frank Klopas did a great job in preventing this team from having a record similar to Toronto’s or Colorado’s this season. It’s the third time that Klopas had to come in and coach to finish out the season after the club sacked the head coach. In 2011, Carlos de los Cobos was sacked and Klopas led a team that won twice in their first 24 matches to one who was still in playoff contention until almost the last week of the season after winning seven of their last ten. In 2021, Klopas coached the last six matches of the season after the Fire were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention under Raphael Wicky. This year, after a 3-0 loss to Nashville on May 7th, he replaced Ezra Hendrickson and there was hope after the Fire won five of six heading into Leagues Cup, but that hope soon dissipated and was snuffed out at Citi Field last Saturday.
There is no mistaking Klopas’s passion for the club and the city and his willingness to do anything for the club. However, he can best serve this club as an ambassador and should not be kicked upstairs.
This reported writes this on the 25th anniversary of the Fire winning MLS Cup. Fans of a certain age remember when the Fire were regular contenders. However, they have not seen anything close since the start of the 2010 season. The hardest thing to do in sports is to convert a losing culture into a winning one, which is what FC Cincinnati are currently doing.
Joe Mansueto needs to bring in executives and coaches that are winners to the soccer operation and can resurrect a culture of winning in Chicago. It’s not going to happen under Heitz who does not deserve to hire a third coach or another designated player. If that requires poaching another team’s staff (or multiple teams), then the Fire must pay that price and Mansueto has been described as “really prepared to do anything” for the Fire. The time to do anything (and likely everything within reason) is now. Fix it, Joe!