Someone Isn't Telling Someone Something?

Something strange is going on in the Fire front office. After Ridge Mahoney reported in Soccer America that the Chicago coaching search has boiled down to either Tom Soehn or Jesse Marsch, it looks like there's been a concerted effort to walk back the story with the local media. Mahoney cited a source within the Fire organization, but then both Charlie Corr and Sam S. were told by "a source with knowledge of the Fire's coaching search" and "a different source within the Fire organization," respectively, that Soccer America missed the boat.

Some of this seems like damage control with the locals, because it was just a couple of days ago that Frank Klopas told Corr that "we have our list of guys, some with MLS experience, some that might not have that much experience, some who know the league well, some guys from around the world." For a report to come out that the process is down to two finalists just a few days later can't help the overall state of media relations, so even if Soccer America got it right, there's some obligation to deny it for the sake of appearances.

The bigger point here seems to be that there are some conflicting agendas at work, although if I were venture a guess, the anonymous member of the organization trying to influence the process the most was the person who leaked to Ridge. Unless it was a trial balloon to see how people would respond to the available former Fire players in the mix, which is the kind of leak you would expect from someone with a background in politics, which happens to be who the Fire have in charge of media.

And still no mention of Eric Wynalda anywhere other than ChicagoNow. Message boards don't count, although from what I'm told, the backlash there over the Soccer America report was probably enough for Andrew Hauptman to sit up and take notice, given the reports of how beholden he's become to the cranky few on the Internet.