Fire In A Hole

I'm not going to lie and say I've been subscribing to the "if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" model regarding the Chicago Fire's disastrous 2010 season. I just haven't had the time or the inclination to go through all the things that went wrong in this past year. There are many.

Still an assessment is in order, especially with some of the player moves of the last couple of weeks.

First and foremost, what the heck just happened? We were one match from the final in 2009, and everyone was talking about how getting rid of Denis Hamlett and bringing in Carlos de los Cobos was the move that would not only get us over the hump, but get us over the hump with style. Lots of front office personnel pay lip service to the notion that "anything less than a championship is a disappointment" -- a refrain we heard a lot in the offseason -- but if you bought into the hype about how stacked this Fire team was, then 2010 had to be the most disappointing season ever. At least in 2004, we waited until the last match of the season to miss the playoffs, and still got to the Open Cup Final.

So, why? Some of it was this ridiculous notion of "attractive, attacking soccer." I've said over and over that the label of "defensive soccer" that was affixed to Hamlett's teams was grossly unfair. Defense wins championships, to begin with. Or at least comes close. If you look at both the 2009 MLS L.A. Galaxy and the 2010 FC Dallas, both of those teams played stingy soccer for weeks and weeks, grinding out points while their respective offenses were given time to figure themselves out. And that got them to the final.

The Fire, on the other foot, gave up points while the offense couldn't be bothered to do much of anything. There was a lot of talk about this from last year, but I, for one, am not going to complain about long balls out of the back if I've got the best target forward in the history on the league on the field, and one of the fastest flat-out attackers in the league in support. I think we saw a recognition of that over the course of the season, as the short passing game disappeared along with midfielder Marco Pappa for long stretches of time, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I've been pretty upfront in my criticism of head coach Carlos de los Cobos, and a big part of that comes down to which players he chose to rely on. Obviously, the promotion of Andrew Dykstra to the starting eleven was a huge mistake. Goalkeepers need to find their voice, and Dykstra clearly hadn't yet. You've heard of goalkeepers "commanding their back line," and that sort of leadership -- that sort of confidence -- simply wasn't there. In 2009, Jon Busch had a damn near telepathic relationship with his defenders, and it showed. They knew where he would be, and he knew where they would be. I have no idea what de los Cobos saw that made him think Dykstra would be an improvement, but the first-year MLS coach clearly missed the boat. I just hope he didn't destroy the young goalie's confidence, and his potential, in the process.

If the 2009 Fire defense played like they had telepathy, I would describe 2010 as the year central defender Wilman Conde played like he was listening to his iPod on full blast, totally oblivious to what was going on around him. I've never seen a defender make more unforced errors in a Fire shirt than Conde this season, and I count the media scrimmages in that total. This was another player that was seen as central to the Fire's success, and another instance where that showed catastrophically poor judgment. Conde has always been mistake-prone, but between his own athleticism and the players around him, the damage he was capable of doing had been minimized. That doesn't cry out "leadership potential" to me. I feel like he bought into his own hype right at the exact point he should have been working to improve flaws in his game, like fouls just outside the penalty area. I made similar criticisms of Gonzalo Segares earlier in his career, but Sega put in the work and improved. Conde didn't. He chose to coast.

Next on the list of misplaced expectations is Pappa, who was given the weight of replacing Cuauhtemoc Blanco as the engine of the offense. I like Pappa. He's a good player, and has a lot of potential, but he is in no way ready to be the focal point of the team's attack. When he buckled early under that pressure, it became quickly apparent that there was no plan B.

At least until the cavalry started to get called in, and that brings us to another key problem this past season. Who the hell is running this show, on the field? A lot of people like to point fingers at Technical Director Frank Klopas, but I feel like his hands were tied more often than not this year. Julio Martinez and Deris Umanzor both originated with Carlos de los Cobos, and they were complete flops, with the added bonus that bringing in Umanzor at left back may well have been what turned Klopas' previous foreign signing at that position, Krzysztof Krol, into a sulking underachiever.

Freddie Ljungberg was owner Andrew Hauptman's idea, by his own admission, which makes me wonder if he was aware Klopas was about to sign another high-profile player at the exact same position in Nery Castillo. I don't think Castillo was honestly expected to contribute right away, and to be fair, he did a fantastic job of not contributing right away while the message out of the front office was how the team had re-loaded to make a run at the playoffs. To his credit, Klopas got one right with Bratislav Ristic, which, given the timing of his signing, seemed to happen only because Hauptman and de los Cobos weren't able to find anyone they thought was better for that final roster spot. I shudder at the possibilities.

Collins John? Calculated risk that didn't pan out. I'm not going to crucify anybody for that one.

Looking to the future, can these problems be fixed in 2011? The emergence of Sean Johnson in goal and the departure of Wilman Conde for Mexico will help, but I don't know if that will be enough. Cory Gibbs could be a good addition to the backline, but I can't help but wonder if he was our third choice in the Re-Entry Draft at that position after Jimmy Conrad and Ryan Cochrane were already off the board. If Kwame Watson-Siriboe has a strong sophmore season, and Gonzalo Segares stays healthy, we might be pretty good, defensively.

Of course, we still don't have a reliable attacker, and while I suspect Calen Carr is going to work his ass off to be the go-to guy every chance he gets, I don't see de los Cobos handing him the keys. No pun intended, at least until I realized what I wrote. Patrick Nyarko still can't finish, and I won't believe Pappa has stepped up to the challenge of dictating the pace of a match until I see it. Ljungberg and Castillo are also still question marks, clearly. And that's if we decide to keep Freddie at all.

As if that weren't enough, I think that, for the first time in Fire history, the team has no depth at defensive midfielder. With John Thorrington and Peter Lowry both selected in the expansion draft, we're going to be in big trouble if Logan Pause gets hurt. And while there may be some guys around the league available to shore up that position, this team seems allergic to trading for players from within MLS. At this point, Ljungberg and Gibbs are the only guys who played previously for another domestic team, and both were special cases.

This team has it's work cut out for it, and I honestly don't know that the organization has the stomach for what's ahead. A fire in its belly, so to speak. I hope I'm wrong. On the plus side, my expectations for the upcoming season are so low as to be easily exceeded, but that doesn't really make me feel any better.