PREFACE: Life outside soccer made things busy and I wasn’t able to provide a debrief of the Fire. However, I have time now and also a media roundtable to digest in regards with the Fire. Also, the Red Stars now have an opponent and time for Sunday.
FIRE: Nelson Rodriguez insisted that the Fire’s football “didn’t let us down” this past season, but it did. If the Fire finished most of the chances that produced “expected goals”, then maybe we are talking about the playoffs this weekend. The Fire were above the red line for just one week this entire season.
We did get glimpses of what the Fire were capable of in the big wins against Atlanta, New England, Colorado, and Orlando; as well as the draw against LAFC; but the reality is that they could not win when it mattered and only won twice on the road all season. There was no improvement in goal with Kenneth Kronholm until it was too late. The defense continued to suffer until Jonathan Bornstein’s arrival. The midfield was hampered by inconsistent lineups by Veljko Paunovic which led to Nemanja Nikolic not being as effective this season.
Nikolic has decided to leave the club as did Bastan Schweinsteiger which opens up about $7.5 million for the Fire to spend. They simply need to make big moves to help fill Soldier Field at the start of the 2020 season.
The consensus is that retaining Nelson Rodriguez and/or Veljko Paunovic would not represent big moves, but rather big gambles that they would be able to do more with more with low chance of a big payoff.
I said in hindsight it was a bad mistake to promote Rodriguez to president along with his general manager duties because of the timing (January when you should be preparing for the upcoming season on the pitch) and things got a bit unsettled. Rodriguez made things worse with the whole flap over Section 101 in 2018. He also did not give Paunovic sufficient tools to deal with 2018. Plus, many Fire fans blame Rodriguez for the regression of the Fire’s Youth Academy.
Paunovic did get more resources for 2019, but he could not get the optimal performance from his team because he constantly tinkered with the lineup. He actually needs to trust his charges more to recover from mistakes on the pitch. He doesn’t and you had Nikolic on the bench for a few matches as well as Djordje Mihailovic and then Raheem Edwards and David Ousted frozen out entirely.
You are deluding yourself if you think if the Fire merely finished a few more chances that they would be in the playoffs. That’s like a non-playoff NFL team saying that if a few plays went their way, they would be in the Super Bowl. You have look at the bigger picture and explore way to not get in the same situation for next time.
Rodriguez suggested that “something in our environment isn’s right”. If you ask most Fire fans, that something is the person who said it and Paunovic and that some of that environment was actually corrected when Andrew Hauptman left.
New owner Joe Mansueto has hinted he would like for Nelson Rodriguez and Veljko Paunovic to stay for 2020, but history suggests that too big a gamble for a team that needs to do big things to be relevant again in Chicago.
RED STARS: The Red Stars will face Portland Thorns—the one team the Red Stars has not defeated this season—on Sunday at 2:30pm on ESPN2. The Red Stars have the home semifinal, their biggest chance to reach the Championship in Cary, and in front of what will be a big crowd for them. The Red Stars need to make the fifth time the charm if they are going to prevent an underachiever tag to be placed on them. They ended the regular season on five straight wins, but have not played since September 28th. It will either be rest or rust against Portland at a time where it could be boom or bust for the Red Stars.
