Trouble Ahead

Just to be clear, the story is not that the Chicago Fire somehow don't care enough about the Open Cup, or that the team wasn't adequately prepared to take on a USL-2 club. What's most important about the Fire dropping a 1-0 match to the Wilmington Hammerheads is that Major League Soccer is not built for multiple competitions. Ives points out that three of the four upsets from Tuesday night all came at the expense of clubs that had just wrapped up the first round of SuperLiga. In the case of the Fire, you also have three players -- Logan Pause, Gonzalo Segares and Jon Busch -- missing for the Gold Cup.

With the reserve league going away this year, it just seems like way too much for Chicago's roster to be able to absorb. The Fire looked like they might have some depth through the SuperLiga matches, but even that depth showed considerable sign of fatigue in the last of those, a poor effort against Tigres that Denis Hamlett called "a disgrace."

Subtract your starting goalkeeper and two key pieces of your defense, and Tuesday's result isn't that much of a surprise. The big question is going to be if Chicago can get their legs back under them while Pause, Busch and Sega are away with their national teams. With the announcement than the U.S. may name 7 more players to the Gold Cup squad due to their participation in Confederations Cup, it's possible that the Fire's ranks could get even thinner. The club's immediate fortunes may also ride on injuries, as Brandon Prideaux left Tuesday's Open Cup match early, joining injured veteran defender C.J. Brown, who hasn't seen action since he left the Superliga match against Chivas USA in the 16th minute.

I guess that what I'm saying is it's going to be a rough month ahead for the Men In Red, as their roster shows obvious signs of strain from all these matches. If there's a silver lining, it's that Chicago should still have a couple of games in hand when they return to full strength after the All-Star Break, so if they lose ground, it can be made up. If they can stay three points or less out of the top, they'll actually be in pretty good shape, all things considered.