Both Chicago teams in sad state of affairs.
“One of the things we tell them is like when you get in pressure situations like this, think of an egg and a potato. Same boiling water, the egg becomes hardened and the potato becomes soft. What are you going to be, are you going to be an egg or a potato?” —former Fire head coach Ezra Hendrickson
Way too often in the first half of the season, Chicago Fire FC and the Chicago Red Stars have been potatoes. Both teams are near the bottom of their respective leagues, both are bottom in average attendance in their respective leagues, and both their fan bases (where there is overlap) deserve much better from each team’s front office.
The Fire continue to blow leads and concede late like they did the previous season. Meanwhile, the Red Stars are just shipping goals as if they were a charity–conceding a league worst 28 goals (seven more than next worst Angel City) and have a league-worst -14 goal difference.
That’s just one issue for each team. There are many more.
Let’s start with the Fire. Had they held their leads at home vs. FC Cincinnati, at home vs. NY Red Bulls, at home vs. Philadelphia, at Charlotte, and at New England; and held on to points at FC Cincinnati, at Atlanta, at Philadelphia, and home vs. Columbus; the Fire would have been joint-second with Nashville in the East on 32 points. Instead, they are second from bottom in the East on 17 points and five points out of a playoff spot.
Add to that their elimination from the US Open Cup in capitulating fashion at home to Houston (two penalty decisions going against the Fire not withstanding), there’s not that much to look forward to at the moment. This stretch of 11 matches in 36 days exposed the fact that the Fire do not have the depth, nor the mental fortitude, to win games as opposed to just being competitive.
It’s up for debate how much of this is on former coach Ezra Hendrickson, on current coach Frank Klopas, and on the players themselves. A majority of the blame should fall squarely on sporting director Georg Heitz and owner Joe Mansueto.
The former has not built a winner and the pieces for some reason or another are not coming together to form a winner When Heitz introduces Xherdan Shaqiri at his signing last season, he admitted that the club “lacked winners”. Unfortunately, they still do. Shaqiri posted decent numbers last season, but more is expected of the league’s highest paid player. He got off to a slow start this season, though has improved recently since returning to full health.
Klopas is super passionate about the team and the city. He has done and will continue to do everything asked of him by the club. He will be forever popular among Fire fans. Having said that, the Fire should look to find a more permanent solution for 2024 since Klopas will be in the technical area for the rest of the season.
Circling back to Heitz, it is evident that he has not learned enough about what it takes to win in Major League Soccer. He has already appointed two coaches, already brought in Klopas as caretaker after sacking said coaches, and none of his designated player signings have live up to their billing so far. With an open designated player spot and the likelihood a new coach will be needed for 2024, Heitz and technical director Sebastian Pelzer should not be in a position to make a decision on either. The Fire need to address their lack of depth during the summer transfer window, but few Fire fans trust that Heitz will do the right thing to make a playoff push.
That leaves owner Joe Mansueto. Whatever growing pains he experienced in building Morningstar, he needs to learn that owning a soccer club is a different kind of business altogether and apparently needs to do more research on what it takes to build a winner. He needs to hire better soccer people. There was a missed opportunity in the offseason to hire Garth Lagerwey when his time in Seattle expired. The moment the Fire are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, Heitz should be sacked.
In a poll in the Athletic prior to the start of the season surveying 20 executives, they rated Mansueto in a four-way tie for second best owner with one executive saying that Mansueto is “really prepared to do anything” for the Fire. He needs to be prepared to do just that for 2024 if the Fire are going to return to relevance and return to winning. He needs to be prepared to sack Heitz and Pelzer and hire better soccer people–even if that means poaching someone from a more successful MLS team. Those people would then need to be give the longitude and latitude to hire a proven coach and bring in players who will live up to designated player billing.
This website and this reporter in his preview said the following prior to the season:
“The fear is that it will all go sideways at some point and the calls will be for Mansueto to really be “prepared to do anything” to rebuild the Fire starting with a rebuild of the entire soccer operations. Fire fans need to see better commitment from Mansueto, who made his money providing investment research, will do the research and make the moves necessary to move the Fire forward.”
The 2023 season is fast leaning towards this scenario. While groundbreaking on a new training facility in the city is a good start, as well as gaining an English-language radio station to broadcast games, the most important metric for a soccer club is winning. That will lead to the hoped-for average of 25,000 a match at Soldier Field. Joe Manuseto will sooner rather than later need to be prepared to do anything and everything, otherwise, the Fire will continue to be small potatoes and Manuseto will need to be prepared to face the fan backlash that Andrew Hauptman received when he owned the club.
Photo: Leslie Smith
As for the Red Stars, they need a new owner and now, if anything, to remove some of the scars left and Arnim Whisler’s complicity to Rory Dames’s, not to mention the club’s former general manager and assistant coach, abusive actions. There was a story in Sportico back in March where there was interest from both the Ricketts Family (owners of the Chicago Cubs) and Pat Ryan (who has a stake in the Chicago Bears), but nothing really has come from it since. A number of people joined in the ownership group before the Yates Report and subsequent investigations laid bare the toxic culture that permeated the club. None of those people have stepped up to take a majority stake in the club and move it forward. For its part, the NWSL needs to stop dithering and get the ball rolling faster on a sale because it is poor optics for a team in the third largest market in North America to look like a rudderless ship out there.
On the pitch, any chances this club had for success this season seemed to have gone by the wayside with the injury to Mallory Swanson. Swanson tore her patella while with the US National Team in a match against Republic of Ireland. Losing Danielle Colaprico, Vanessa DiBernardo, and Morgan Gautrat, et. al. have exacerbated the lack of depth in the squad. While Casey Kreuger and Tierna Davidson have returned after missing all of last season; they cannot carry the entire load and neither can goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher. Yuki Nagasato lacks a striker to send the ball to and none of the strikers on the roster have been able to fill the void left by Swanson. In fact, no one on the squad has more than two goals. How much of this is on Chris Petrucelli and his staff is a topic of debate, but last Saturday’s 5-0 defeat at home to North Carolina has to go down as a low point this season.
The streak of seven consecutive seasons in the playoffs looks to be dead in the water unless the Red Stars can brighten up and make a surge in the second half of the season. Whatever happens on the pitch, the club is in desperate need of leadership both on the pitch and in the front office. The sooner a new owner can be put in place, the better and only then can the Red Stars move forward from the scars left by Arnim Whisler’s ownership.
It’s an extremely rough time to be a soccer fan in Chicago right now. Neither the Fire or the Red Stars are doing well. Both teams are last in average attendance in their respective leagues. Both teams look adrift at the moment and one team’s owner needs to be better prepared to do anything while the other team needs an owner who needs to be prepared to do much more to move that team forward. On top of that, Chicago will not be hosting matches for the 2026 World Cup which will be painful even though we have known that for years now.
For far too often, and the other pro sports team in this city are guilty of this as well, fans in the third largest market in the nation has been treated with third-rate products on the field. That needs to stop. The Fire needs their owner to put better people in place in the soccer operations who can put better people in the technical area and on the pitch. The Red Stars need an owner who is capable of taking that team forward and maybe be closer to the level of popularity the WNBA’s Sky currently enjoy. It’s time both the Fire and Red Stars stop being small potatoes!
