The Paw Print

By Kevin Fernandez

In the early 2000’s Chicago FIre was one of the most consistent and dominant clubs in all of American soccer. Year after year they pushed deep into the playoffs often being a runner up. But after what seemed like a successful season in 2009, the fire went on a decade of continued disappointment. Starting from 2010 until now, Chicago Fire have only managed to qualify for the payoff round twice. Both times they were knocked out in the round of sixteen. How did such a successful team drop that low?

           The blame for the club’s mediocrity has mostly been placed on the upper management of the club. Previous owner Andrew Hauptman had been criticized immensely for his decisions on the hiring of staff, deals for players, and relationship with the fans. In 2010 the Fire were looking to rebuild their squad as almost all of their tested veteran players left. Hauptman’s first odd decision was to release head manager Denis Hamlett. Hamlett had led the Fire to the semifinals in 2009, so releasing him was received with mixed feelings by the Chicago Fire fan base. His replacement was Carlos de los Cobos. But by the time of his release, had 11 wins, 15 draws, and 19 losses. In 2010, for the second time in Chicago Fire’s history, they did not make the playoffs. Their horrible record with DP’s don’t help. DP’s, or designated players, are special players that teams are allowed to pay more than they are allowed to with normal players. They usually tend to be well known and experienced players, but the Fire has continually failed to sign good DP’s. This cycle of bad managers with underwhelming signings continued. After a lot of pressure from the fan base Hautman finally sold his shares to Joe Mansueto.

Joe Mansueto decided to make huge changes in hope that Chicago Fire could go back to their former glory. One of his first changes was to move the home stadium back to Soldier Field. The old field, Toyota Park, was in the suburbs, so fan’s reaction to the change of fields was of great excitement as the field was much closer. He also decided to rebrand with a new color for the team home kit and logo. All of these changes still haven’t produced much change on the field. Their playoff drought has continued into the 6th year and they are currently 13th place outside of the playoff qualification. Fans are hoping that Chicago Fire go back to regularly making it into the playoffs, but will Joe Mansueto be the answer?