Dear Mr. Mansueto,
It has been almost five years since I last wrote to you. You will recall that I but asked for you–or someone external–to change the philosophy and culture which was desperately needed at the club no thanks to the mismanagement of Andrew Hauptman and Nelson Rodriguez. Two months later, you bought the remaining 51% of the club from Mr. Hauptman. I ended that article with the following:
“The Fire are under local ownership for the first time in their history. It is hoped that Mansueto and his deep pockets and connections will right the ship and have the Fire be relevant once again in the city.”
You are now in your fifth full season as owner and once again, the calls for change have returned as the ship known as Chicago Fire FC continues to look far adrift. Many supporters feel it was a mistake to retain sporting director Georg Heitz, technical director Sebastian Pelzer, and head coach Frank Klopas for the 2024 season. The Fire have yet to make the playoffs in your tenure and the team seems to be going nowhere on the pitch despite the millions spent on numerous players such as Xherdan Shaqiri. Seeing the last few matches especially, I see a Chicago Fire squad that looks completely disjointed and bereft of ideas on what type of soccer they want to play let alone how to win.
Yes, there is a new training facility on the way on the city’s West Side. There have been also plenty of positives on the corporate side as well thanks to President of Business Operations Dave Baldwin as his staff. However, the most important metric for any sports organization is winning. Chicago Fire FC has not done a lot of that over the past 15 years. It was hoped that through your ownership of the club that things would change for the better. Things may eventually change for the better in due time, but Fire fans have not the patience, nor the tolerance for continued mediocrity at most as what has been seen on the pitch over the last few seasons.
I suggested that Heitz and Pelzer be removed from their posts after the 2023 season. While there have been improvements as far as the establishment of a reserve side in MLS NEXT Pro and with the Fire Academy, the first team continues to struggle and none of the designated players brought in by Messrs. Heitz and Pelzer have lifted the club’s fortunes. Xherdan Shaqiri’s contract looks more and more like an albatross each day. As of this typing, he has scored just 14 goals and 18 assists in the regular season since 2022. Those are not statistics worthy of a player making $8 million dollars a year. Another pain point is that no player since 2021 has scored more than ten goals in a single season. The closest were Robert Beric and Luka Stojanovic in 2021 and Jhon Duran in 2022 with eight goals each–all three of whom were no longer with the club the following season.
A striker was brought in in the form of Hugo Cuypers for a transfer fee of $12 million. However, the main reason he has only scored three goals so far this season is because he is sorely lacking the service that a central attacking midfielder, which Shaqiri is not, would provide him. If we are not going to have confidence in placing Brian Gutierrez in the #10 position, then someone needs to be brought into that position during the next transfer window if not sooner.
The transfer fees collected on the sales for Duran and Gaga Slonina do not appear to have been put to the best use given most of the players that have been brought in since.
As for Frank Klopas, there is no denying his passion for the city and the club. Indeed, he would do anything for the Fire and has. Unfortunately, he’s been the one constant in the technical area since 2020 whether as an assistant coach, an interim coach, or as the current head coach. We do not believe there were not more qualified candidates for the job during the offseason. Too often, the club appears to lack the confidence to create quality chances to score and defensively shut off too many times costing the team points in the standings. This past Saturday night’s match against St. Louis CITY SC and the previous week against New England were prime examples.
As stated back in October, Frank can best serve the Fire as an ambassador. There are other former Fire players who are currently having success as coaches around Major League Soccer and fans would cheer if one of them became the coach of the Fire.
As far as the operations go for the first team of Chicago Fire FC, there have been far more bad decisions than good ones. Ultimately, that falls on you as the owner as you hired and then retained Messrs. Heitz, Pelzer, and Klopas for the 2024 season and right now are in a worse position than they were last season when the decision was made to part ways with Ezra Hendrickson. Fire fans deserve much better than what they are seeing out on the pitch at the moment. Chicago has a rich soccer history and a passionate fan base. That fan base has had little to cheer for since 2009 when the Fire last won a playoff match.
I am certainly not the only person who is once again calling for a change in philosophy and culture. To repeat what I said back in October, only in a more direct way, you need to bring in executives and coaches that have been winners to the soccer operation and can resurrect a culture of winning in Chicago. It would be a plus if these people have been winners in Major League Soccer in the past. To reiterate, the most important metric for a sports organization is winning.
It’s not going to happen under the current technical staff. If that requires poaching another team’s staff (or multiple teams), then the Fire must pay that price and you were described in an article in February 2023 as “really prepared to do anything” for the Fire. You now must be prepared to really do something to change the Fire’s fortunes for the better.
It is understandable that there are immense challenges to change a culture that has been a losing one for the longest time into a winning one. However, both the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Cubs managed to do that in a few years’ time. The time for Chicago Fire FC to do the same is long overdue.
Sincerely yours,
Dan Gaichas
Editor, Prost Amerika.
