Chicago Fire: 5 takeaways from MLS Is Back Tournament

4. Catastrophic Kronholm

Some Chicago Fire players were poor, like Francisco Calvo and Fabian Herbers, but no one was quite nearly as bad as goalkeeper Kenneth Kronholm.

He had been dreadful the year before but somehow kept his starting spot going into this season. Kronholm didn’t make any major mistakes in the opening two games of the campaign, which led to many hoping he had improved during the time off. However, he was back to his old self during the MLS Is Back Tournament.

Always shaky in possession at the back, he nearly gave the ball away on several occasions in front of his own goal. Kronholm only made the easiest of passes and usually just smashed the ball up the pitch in a panic. Every cross whipped into the area became dangerous since he failed to command his area. He would come out too early or too late and consistently needed to be bailed out by his teammates time and time again.

And yet, Kronholm’s shot-stopping was somehow worse than everything else. His positioning was off, often stood too far off his line, making it easy for opposing strikers to finish. As a result, Chicago failed to keep a clean sheet in any of their three games.

The most damning stat is that Kronholm only made one save during the entire tournament. That is abysmal and proves the Fire are in desperate need of a new goalkeeper.