Three Ways to Fix the Chicago Fire

With a couple of weeks off to take a breather from the Major League Soccer season, this might be the only chance the Chicago Fire get to take inventory on how the season is going so far. There’s a lot of problems, with the team getting off to their worst start in club history by picking up just 4 points out of their first 7 games. Despite having what was touted as a possibly overwhelming attack, they’ve only managed 4 total goals, with a stretch of over 380 minutes without a single goal. Despite this, they also have a terrible defense, allowing around 2 goals per game and only managing a single clean sheet in their single win against Inter Miami, who have their own set of issues.

There’s a lot of different ways to tackle the Chicago Fire’s problems. There’s also not very many ways to solve them. So here are three levels at which the Fire could look at their problems and look to make changes during the break.

Tactics

This is the first level because it is the easiest form of change for the club. All problems won’t be solved through a new tactical set up, but they can certainly help a team that doesn’t seem to know how to handle balls going into the net. The Chicago Fire can’t handle keeping the ball out of their own net and they can’t handle getting the ball into their opponent’s net. But one of those things doesn’t necessarily need to be true.

Something I noticed when watching the first game of the season was that the moment that defense felt any sort of pressure, the entire team would come back to defend. Not just the midfield, but the attack would be sent back as well. And they wouldn’t really be sent back forward. From the moment the Fire gave up their first goal of the season to finally scoring against Inter Miami, the Fire were trying to stay compact in defense. But, as we saw with the amount of goals scored on them, this isn’t going to cut it. Helping out a clearly insufficient defense isn’t worth it when you sacrifice your attack for nothing in return on defense.

My idea is a bit weird, but it comes from hockey. Essentially, just dump the puck into the offensive zone, flood the zone, and go hard on the forecheck. What this means in a soccer sense, unfortunately, means doing away with beautiful passing and build-up play. It means playing a Route One style of play, kicking the ball over the defensive line, sending someone to collect it, and then shifting everyone forward. It means an extremely high and smothering press that sacrifices defense. Because we’ve seen how much of a failure sacrificing the attack has been and it’s time to just try to score more than the other team.

It’s less about adding more of an offense, but more about making sure the ball is nowhere near the final third. The Chicago Fire have been at their best in games where the ball never even touches their own third. This should be obvious, but it’s just so exaggerated when it comes to the Fire. Playing Route One isn’t the best way to play for this team when it comes to attacking, but it’s the easiest way for them to shore up a defense that has been holding back the offense.

Signings

Another route the Chicago Fire can take other than Route One is by making some signings. Unfortunately, there are some issues with cap space and Designated Player slots. But, let’s walk through the rest of this part of the article ignoring contracts because this doesn’t need to be a mid-season fix. A lot of these contracts run out at the end of the season, so the Fire can easily make a lot of these moves after the season.

That’s a good thing too because the Chicago Fire need to re-think their entire DP allotment. Gaston Gimenez and Robert Beric seem to be busts when it comes to being impact players. I only name two out of the three because Ignacio Aliseda is a Young DP, which is supposed to be a bit of a gamble. But the two other DPs should be established stars that will make an immediate impact upon their signing. Beric isn’t a bad starter, but he’s shown that he’s not a center-piece and Gimenez has just regressed to a horribly disappointing level this season alone.

If I were to be replacing the two as DPs, I would still sign DPs in those positions. While the Fire need help on defense, I think that there are ways to get quality centerbacks without having to break out a rule designed to get players like David Beckham and Cuautehmoc Blanco. The Fire need to grab a striker with a proven track record for scoring, someone who can finish. Beric can do a lot in the attack, but he’s shown that he’s not that adept at actually striking the ball, which is the main job of a striker. They also need not only a solid defensive midfielder, but a high quality captain, which fixes two problems in one. One of the biggest complaints about Gimenez right now is his lack of defensive quality and how prone he is to giveaways at the worst moments. While that’s just the positions, I do have a single player that can be an actual replacement right now for one of those two underperforming DPs.

For some strange reason, Daniel Sturridge has not been signed since 2020, when he was released by Trabzonspor after he received a three-month ban from FIFA for his involvement in some betting around possible transfers. He has clearly served that three-month ban, but he has not signed with anywhere new since. He is a proven Premier League goalscorer who was able to pick up 50 goals in his 116 league appearances for Liverpool. He’s 31 years old, which does go a bit against GM Georg Heitz’s preference towards building young players, but Beric wasn’t a young man in soccer terms when he was signed. If the Fire want a striker who can actually strike the ball, this may be their guy.

Management

The biggest question for the Chicago Fire to ask right now is: Is it too soon to start putting Georg Heitz and Raphael Wicky on the hot seat? And if it isn’t too soon, should they be on together? Many fans are looking at these two in the same way that they looked at Nelson Rodriguez and Veljko Paunovic, a pair that had placed their fates at the club into eachother’s hands. But according to recent quotes from Heitz, that might not be true. He wasn’t chosen for their previous working relationship, he was simply chosen because they believed that his system would work.

For that very reason, if Wicky were to be fired, I wouldn’t expect that Heitz would be gone along with him. Heitz would remain with the Fire to select at least one more coach to try to use the squad that Heitz had laid out. That is the one thing that Heitz can actually take credit for, the roster. But taking that into account, a very different picture is painted.

Sure, I already mentioned how the tactics could be tweaked to give the team a better chance, but I also mention how the roster could also be given an overhaul to fix things. It wasn’t Wicky who signed all of these disappointing DPs, it wasn’t Wicky who has left the team with next to no depth, and it wasn’t Wicky who handed out contracts that will restrict the signing of any further reinforcements. So if the blame on those things fall on Heitz, then he’s the one who should be gone. And if that happens, likely both will be gone.

But the main question is: Is this too soon? And honestly, that’s incredibly tough to answer. It may seem like too early into the season or even too early into their time at the helm, but they’ve been in charge for a total of 30 games and have only picked up 27 total points. This is not a good sign. And while it may feel too early, if they’re destined to be fired later in the season, it might be best for them to be gone now so that the next regime can have a full summer transfer window to work with.

All together, the Chicago Fire are in a position where things need to change. They can change in small ways or they can change in big ways. But with the theme of this past offseason being roster consistency, it seems like that only created a consistency in poor results.