The Chicago Fire continued their disappointing run this week with a loss to FC Cincinnati and draw against the Columbus Crew. Here are three takeaways from Week 19.
This Chicago Fire team is emotionally draining. There is so much wrong and so little being done. There are so many problems to list, but they’ve all been listed already. I have gone over them over and over again in so many pieces. It just feels meaningless. All the work being put into this club by so many different people is being wasted by the actions of a select few.
Over the past month or so, the Chicago Fire have only picked up a single win over a severely diminished Atlanta squad. They lost to a USL team who currently sits at 11th in their conference, a broken and injured Sporting KC, who were sitting near last in the Western Conference, and an FC Cincinnati team that looked to be on track towards one of the worst seasons in history.
And this week, the Fire only came away with a draw against a trash Columbus team in a rivalry game at home. I don’t think any Fire fans have felt hope since the moment that first Chris Wondolowski goal went in back in May. There continues to be nothing done and it’s time to talk about some of those things that were apparent this week.
Here are three takeaways from the week. They will be a bit longer and more in-depth as they focus on the goings-on of the club throughout the week and season.
3. How many rebuilds are needed?
It’s hard to definitively define ‘eras’ in anything, whether it be human civilization, music culture, or sports. But many Chicago Fire fans define the club’s history as two different eras: the Pre-Hauptman era and the Hauptman era. This defines the mid-point between the two eras of club history as September 2007 when Andrew Hauptman bought the club. Prior to that point, the Chicago Fire had been a part of MLS’ exponential rise in popularity. While not having won the MLS Cup since ’98, the team was in constant contention for it and had won the U.S. Open Cup four times already in their 10-year history. Since then, the team has not won any real trophies. What they have done is rebuild. A lot.
I’ve gone over the list of head coach hiring and firings in a previous article, but I feel like it’s worth reiterating just how many times since the beginning of the Hauptman era that the Fire have had to ‘tear everything down and start again.’ Painfully, you will see just how often it was, how it was sometimes done multiple times by the same coach, and how there was always a three-year plan and by the end of those three years the Fire were somehow worse off than they were when it started.
So, here’s the list again:
In 2009, after losing in the Eastern Conference playoffs on a penalty shootout, head coach Dennis Hamlett was fired. He had been a part of the Chicago Fire organization since the beginning and was an assistant under both Bob Bradley and Dave Sarachan. He would be the last Fire coach to win an MLS playoff game and he was fired for losing on penalties. He is now the sporting director for the New York Red Bulls.
In 2011, after a season and a half of disappointing results, head coach Carlos de Los Cobos was sent packing mid-season and replaced by former Fire player Frank Klopas, who had been the team’s technical director (and previously head coach of an indoor team, the Chicago Storm). Klopas would also get the team to the playoffs, but could not win the play-in game against Houston.
After barely missing out on the playoffs the next season, despite Mike Magee’s best efforts, Klopas stepped down from the position in 2013. He would go on to coach the first MLS team to make the CONCACAF Champions League final and is now the team’s color commentator. In his place, the Fire hired Frank Yallop, a former San Jose Earthquakes coach who also brought in a coaching staff that featured former players like CJ Brown.
Yallop would break the record for the most draws in a single season (twice) and after finishing bottom of the table was fired late into the season in 2015. In the interim, he was replaced by Brian Bliss, while Nelson Rodriguez was brought in as general manager to begin a coaching search that offseason.
That brings us to the current coach, Veljko Paunovic, but that does not end our list of rebuilds here. In just two seasons, the Chicago Fire would climb all the way into the playoffs. After losing, the team went into the 2018 offseason with so few players on the roster that there was a worry that the team wouldn’t have a full roster by the start of the season. Probably the one moment that marked this as a shifting point once again was the trade of David Accam, who had been an integral part of the team in the past few years. As we saw, 2018 was a failure, but it was believed that the team was setting up for another run for the next season.
This year, though, the Fire again crash-landed after an off-season of shedding players. Once again faced with a team that cannot win even though they have all the talent to do so, this would be the moment that any other coaching tenure would end. Instead, Nelson Rodriguez has decided to begin another rebuild. This would be his third chance at a rebuild. That’s too much for one person, especially in such a short span of time. To believe that the difference for this club has been players and not even considering any other factors is blindingly stupid, but that is what is about too happen.