BRIDGEVIEW, IL-While the season concluded very quickly for the Chicago Fire, the club has plenty of questions to answer of what happened this past season and where to go from here?
President and General Manager Nelson Rodriguez hosted an hour-long roundtable discussion with the media on Thursday afternoon at Toyota Park.
Up front, Rodriguez was the one taking the blame of what has happened to the club this past season with a number of other things that were left on the table.
“We entered this MLS season with a chance to consolidate the good results that we achieved in 2017,” Rodriguez said. “It was as opportunity to put away some doubt and continue an upward assent. However, the results on the field did not come and that’s disappointing for everyone. I am responsible! I didn’t do a good enough job. No one should blame ownership with all the resources we need to succeed. It’s not the fault of the coaches or the staff. This season has my fingerprints on it.. Throughout the year, I reiterated my strong belief in the character of the locker room, the coaches and the entire club staff. I don’t regret putting my faith in it. No one quit, no one has made excuses. We have defended the badge with pride and honor.
“Any shortcomings that anyone will see, should realize that is the result of my decisions. For our club to be successful, we need a highly competitive environment. That comes from overall quality, and individual spirit. We didn’t have enough of that this year. This area, I won’t fail again and we will improve. I know in sports, the results are the easiest mark of progress. While wins and losses are a leading indicator, they are not the only measure of progress. I look at progress as a continuous journey not just an end state. Progress is not of enhancing what is, but advancing what will be. We will move this club forward. We will achieve our goals. We will build a club that makes our fans proud and adds to our championship lore.”
Trying to build from what Rodriguez is trying to pass along will take a lot more than what the players and the organization have seen over this last decade.
“It will take discipline, stability, and pride,” Rodriguez said. “I believe we can accomplish on a world scale. Growth is painful, change is painful, but nothing is as painful as being stuck where you don’t belong. We don’t belong outside the playoffs. We don’t belong being doubted and even degraded by some. But only we can change that narrative to become unstuck will not be incremental.”
Of what changes that can be made, Rodriguez believes it must start with a couple of things in the forefront.
“First, we must be more bold, bolder in our vision, bolder in our visions and bolder in our attempts,” Rodriguez added. “Second, we must be brave in our attitudes and in our actions. We’re forging ahead with conviction. We’re pursuing our ambitions with vigor and confidence. I’m comfortable being in front of all these issues and comfortable sharing all our intentions, because I know my faith and my values will see us through.”
Of the matters at hand, standing is the status of the current coach Veljko Paunovic. Many are wondering if he will return as the coach for next year and that has yet to be decided.
“It remains in my intention for Pauno to come back,” Rodriguez said. “I believe he still wants to return. We have not met since the season has ended. He’s currently overseas scouting players and he and I are scheduled to meet next week.”
In looking back throughout the 2017 campaign, Chicago didn’t get some of the players they wanted, but they were also hampered by a number of players injured early on, that caused a bigger problem as the season went on.
“You get no credit for doing a bad deal, but it also doesn’t help when you don’t get enough good players,’ Rodriguez said. “We made an attempt to bring in players, but it didn’t come through for various reasons. We don’t typically speak about injuries. But, we had to recognize they were there Djordje (Mihailovic) and Michael (de Leeuw) were known going into the season. We didn’t expect after two games to not have Matt Polster or Luis Solignac. We didn’t expect to lose Dax (McCarty) on two different occasions. We had lost about half of our starting team. That’s difficult and a number of younger players didn’t perform to the expectation level that we had hoped. As I said in preseason, we didn’t have sufficient competition in the roster.”
As for the roster, there has been this three-year process that club has been building in trying to improve with the rest of the MLS.
“I think our roster is generally better,” Rodriguez pointed out, “I think our mindset is definitely better, but it’s not fully where it needs to be. I think this was a difficult year to evaluate. I think back to the end of last year. We had a good core of players and a good team that can contend. If we added a few pieces, we could’ve been with the best teams in the league. We didn’t have those pieces and everything remained the same other than injuries. I still believe we have a good nucleus of guys and we have drawn a lot of interest to a lot of players around the league. We just have to get better, close deals and I have to close deals. That’s what we will work on in the off season.”
Still, what has been lacking over the past three years is the development of finding the winning mentality, leading the club and it must start right at the top working its way down to the players.
“I think it’s my job to see beyond the results,” Rodriguez said. “The plan and the program when I first came here was to build a championship program. That was based on people, process, and focus. Again, I think we acquire good people. We continue to improve and refine our process. Our focus remains erratic, I still think we need to get some basics better and we need to get better than that. We need the importance of mentality. That is something I’ve always thought about, but has become a reality.”
Chicago Fire hasn’t had the best attendance showing in the league this past season being near the bottom portion, but they also have had some issues with its supporter groups which has gone on since the summer. There seems to be some sort of talking going on and maybe both sides can work something out as early as next week.
“Sense of disappointment is profound from ownership to players and always the fans,” Rodriguez said. “When you don’t win it’s difficult to expect different. We have great loyal fans that truly support the team. We appreciate of that. Regarding with what’s happening with the fan groups. We’ve met with leadership with Section 8, we mutually agreed in that meeting not to discuss things through the media and in the public. We honor that word and will not do that. We do have another meeting scheduled with various supporter leaders and individual leaders next week. At the recommendation of the August meeting, I have met with some individual supporters and I learned a lot in those conversations. The biggest takeaway is we the club must do a better job communicating and we do have some new vehicles to communicate. I still believe we’re deeply aligned in what we want. There are certain things as a club that we need to act. I think when that were able to act, we’ll express those there will be an agreement. We have to recognize and work towards achieving some of the things supporter groups believe to have or need to see. So we’ll continue to work on that.”
Chicago Fire
August, 2024
