Give Me Just One Reason

The big story erupting today is that Wilman Conde wants to be traded to New York in order to continue to play under Juan Carlos Osorio.

The most important point here is that, without Juan Carlos Osorio, Conde sees no compelling reason to stay in Chicago. That's kind of depressing when you consider that the Fire used to be one of the flagship franchises in the league, a place where there were easily a half dozen or more reasons to want to play here, from the head coach and the GM all the way down. Tradition? Honor? Passion? Apparently they're in short enough supply to not be a draw. Section 8 Chicago's attempts to turn him into Chuck Norris had surprisingly little effect as well.

This is not entirely John Guppy's fault. It started with Dave Sarachan and players like Henry Ring and Ante Razov and then got worse when Guppy replaced Peter Wilt, as Peter was at least able to counterbalance some of the bad blood between Sarachan and some of his more outspoken players. And now, apparently, worse still, at least until Frank Klopas and Denis Hamlett -- and maybe Andrew Hauptman -- can right the ship.

From a practical standpoint, we're in that tough spot where everyone now knows we're stuck with a player that doesn't want to be here, so his trade value is plummeting by the minute. If we can pry Dane Richards away, that will have to do. A combination of Dema Kovalenko or Seth Stammler and Mike Magee would do in a pinch, but only if Diego Gutierrez is willing to accept a bench role this season. A lot of people may consider Dema to be past his prime, but one of the biggest things Conde brought to the Fire was some much needed bite, and that's one thing Kovalenko will never be lacking. And if we end up him, we should demand a preseason exhibition as part of the deal so Dema can break Conde's leg.

To be honest, I thought Conde was a bit overrated as a defender, but he was very good as a defensive midfielder. So the degree to which we can absorb his loss depends primarily on Osei Telesford, whose name I haven't seen in the preseason lineups yet and may be injured, and Bakary Soumare. To a lesser extent, Jeff Curtin, Jordan Russolillo and newcomer Austin Washington could have an opportunity to step up.

I'd love to see them both fail miserably in the Meadowlands, to be honest, because I think they got a lot more credit for last season's resurgence than they deserved, and we all know how much I like being right.