Rampant Speculation

It's been pretty quiet on the news front regarding John Guppy's abrupt departure from the Chicago Fire, so let me throw some stuff out there.

I had been behind in my MLS newsreading, so I hadn't seen the articles in the middle of the week about Andrew Hauptman. I had heard that Hauptman's comments were the impetus for Ives running his piece, but other than saying that Osorio didn't want to be in Chicago, and that he would have never allowed the out clause in his contract, I didn't seen anything that was laying down the line that he would never deal with the Red Bull front office out of spite. So I still think the timing of Ives' post was suspicious. Could have been nothing, but it just felt a little out of the blue to me.

As for the impetus for the move itself, those midweek articles did point to a growing number of areas where Hauptman seems to think the Guppy regime hadn't fulfilled their potential, and presented it with almost precisely that language so as to be somewhat diplomatic. I think the season ticket numbers this season may have been especially damaging, and speaks directly to the value proposition of Guppy's product not living up to predictions, particularly when you look at the churn in the club seats once those initial two-year contracts ran out. Hauptman also pointed to the marketing of the pre-season tour in Mexico, which seems odd when you put it in the context of normal pre-season Fire trips, but maybe not so much when you compare it to how the Galaxy have been "monetizing" David Beckham in the pre-season.

On Friday, I said there was "no question" that Ives was the catalyst for the dismissal, so the question is, why? Looking back over those articles that came out last week, Andrew already knew about the clause in Osorio's contract, so that leaves me with two possibilities. First, the other aspect of the Ives report -- that Guppy had contacted Osorio without Millionarios' consent and behind Dave Sarachan's back -- may not have been widely known, or not known at all by the new Fire owner, in whole or in part. The second is that Ives' article made Hauptman look like a chump. This was why I took exception to the article in the first place, because it seemed to let Guppy off the hook in that regard. So, Hauptman put him directly on the hook.

What will be interesting to see now is if Hauptman uses this change to "clear the air" with New York, although he still shouldn't give them Wilman Conde.

Replacements? Peter Wilt is loyal to a fault, which means I don't think he would give up his stewardship of the new women's team to run the Fire full-time again. I could see some sort of official part-time role, though. His former assistant, Steve Pastorino, would be an option that would be consistent with this year's "back to the future" motif that brought Frank Klopas, Chris Armas and Mike Jeffries back to the technical staff. Steven Goff mentioned someone else that I had never heard of, but didn't give much rationale. I expect there to be more on this soon, obviously.