Chicago Fire midweek training: 3 takeaways from Week 2
1. Tactical confusion and winning mentality
The question becomes: What should the Chicago Fire be looking for in the future? The attack is still very strong and can be versatile, but there was a point in the game against Orlando where the Fire decided to not have anyone in the middle. The formation essentially became one big circle that was trying to herd Orlando around. I guess it could be effective by moving the ball quickly around but it diminishes the impact of players like Bastian Schweinsteiger and Dax McCarty who appeared to be forced out wide and want to control the game from the midfield.
There’s also now a question of who will come in to replace Jorge Corrales at left-back. We should expect to see Mo Adams loaned out to Lansing and Raheem Edwards return to the squad to fill in for the Corrales absence. Of course, dumb things always happen and we may see coach Veljko Paunovic try to take the opportunity to play someone a bit weird at left-back, like Przemyslaw Frankowski or Nico Hasler.
My final point here is about the apparent absence of a winning mentality. Perhaps more accurately, I would argue: This team wants to win but is getting extremely frustrated when things don’t go to plan. Any one of Schweinsteiger, McCarty and Paunovic could be seen yelling at someone at any given moment during a match. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when anger passes and little constructive improvements are present, dumb decisions will be made. This game saw Schweinsteiger commit an unnecessary foul late in the game.
The player who I see right now who wants the win more than anyone else is CJ Sapong, who has absolutely fought for everything so far this season and honestly may have won the starting spot over Nikolic.
In the end, the only thing the Fire really need to do is score early. If they keep having hot starts, then they must capitalize on those moments while they can.
Next. MLS: Week 2 Power Rankings. dark
That’s all for this week’s training session. Time to get ready for the Seattle Sounders at SeatGeek Stadium on Saturday, March 16th at 12:00 PM CDT.