WE Need a Go..d..n Intervention...

Discussion in 'Chicago Fire' started by Fonsos, Sep 20, 2010.

  1. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    ...I've already written this season off but this team needs an Intervention before we end up following in the steps of DC United and those foot prints are still in fresh mud. I already follow a team that hasn't won Jack in over a Century and I'll be damned if I add to that group. Last season ended on a high note from an excitement perspective - remember the hardest to get ticket in town for the Conference Final? Now, you can't give the damn tickets away.

    It's all about what happens on the field. Not the supporters and their singing, not the location of the stadium or anything else. It's all about the 11 and some change and their performance ON THE FIELD. Don't ever forget it!!!!

    This team SUCKS (I'm censoring myself) and it's not an issue of personnel. There are some good players on this team. Why is it that a number of these guys came through last season but this season they've looked horrid? Some players have an off year but NOT an ENTIRE TEAM.

    Let's take a look...

    1. Goal keeping problem didn't happen til someone got really wise and decided
    days before the start of the season to can one of the better keepers in
    the league. Meanwhile the last time any of us have seen the great young
    goal keeper was when we had a box of cereal and reached for that carton
    of milk. Oh, the one we got rid of, he's having a FAB season having become
    the starting keeper of his new club and guess who will actually play in the
    play-offs? We got lucky with Sean Johnson and count your blessings. It's a
    pleasure watching a young keeper and someone who may damn well play in
    the next World Cup--yeah I think he's that good, we got lucky. However in
    the process of stumbling upon one of the country's best young
    goalkeepers, we may have ruined another one. The Fire were known for
    developing young players -- noticed how I used the past tense this is sad.

    2. Banner, Pause and Husidic--last season they performed well and were
    pleasant surprises. This season many of you have slammed them quite
    often while ignoring the fact that these guys played well last season and
    this year they're not? Come on man, if you wanna give anyone the benefit
    a doubt, damn well give it to the players whom work their asses off when
    given opportunities in the past. They have not been put in positions to play
    off their strengths the entire season and when it seemed as though they
    were playing well, it was put to a stop by a substitution.

    3. "New style of soccer" or whatever in the hell the club proudly boasted
    about before the start of this season. None of us realized that this style
    would involve watching our team get weekly ass kickings nor did any of
    us expect to have even more stunned looks match after match. Let's just
    say I have an idea of what Battle Fatigue is like after watching this team
    play this season and I have even more sympathy for our service men &
    women in the armed forces. Yeah, it's pretty messed up that I'm
    comparing a soccer team I'm a fan of to war.
    CRAZY!!!!!

    Clean house. Let's start with the owner since I just get the impression that he's made some soccer decisions without actually letting the soccer people do their job. You're paying them to do a job so let them, puhlease, otherwise fewer asses will be in seats. It's simple as that not many people are spending money to watch a piss poor team and I don't care who's on that team.

    Send DLC back to El Salvador. It didn't workout in MLS and Chicago for him, maybe somewhere else but this isn't the place.

    Who do you bring in? Someone who's familiar with the club, the league and knows this team through and through and someone who would love to have the job. Larry Sunderland has done a hell of a job with the youth program and definitely knows the game. It's time for him to move to the senior level and coach this club. He's hungry for it and personally I think he'd kick some ass with the team next season.

    Frank isn't faultless here but I'm not throwing him under the bus for a coach who's playing mystery theater 2000 whatever football. This is squarely on the person coaching the team.

    Alright, your time to weigh in
    Fonsos

    P.S.
    Damn it would be nice to compliment this organization but noooo....ooo
     
  2. sWo97

    sWo97 Member+

    Aug 18, 2008
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    CDLC brought players in himself. They haven't worked out. Period.

    Koplas brought in players for CDLC. They may have been misused.

    Looking at the Fire on paper, i see a 1st place team.
    Looking at the way they play, i see a pick up team, a house team, a bunch of players, good or bad, playing with no direction.

    CDLC can not get these guys to click.

    Conde has cost us about 5-6 games this year but his overall quality is not the issue. It's his concentration. Where is their motivation coming from? Looks like no where.
    We are not winning and if we're not winning, why is Banner and CJ playing so much? Where is Bone? Where is KWS? Where did Baggio go? The same 11 aren't winning.

    21 points available. Half won't do it. Unbeaten with 5 wins might. Whatever happens this season happens.

    Next season there must be house cleaning.
     
  3. Are you sober yet?
     
  4. Just kidding. I feel the frustration.

    I'm really, REALLY not a throw the coach under the bus kind of guy. I had more patience than most of Chicago with Wanny and Jauron, and now with Lovie. I was slow to want to get rid of The Hammer. I especially feel that it's important to give a coach time to get his crap together.

    But dangit if I am not feeling that patient this time. We were patient with Sarachan, we were apparently and unknowngly lucky that the columbian guy left (how is it I've already forgotten his name??), and we were patient with Hamlett. I'm tired of being patient. And I also am tired of seeing this team bleed mediocrity. This is not the team I used to root for. That Fire team was different from the other Chicago teams.
     
  5. I actually came to the boards tonight to ask if anyone could start a reasonable off-season thread. I'd have done one myself if I could think of a legitimate topic.

    Because, obviously, we've all been wasting our breath talking this season, and there is clearly nothing left to say about what remains.
     
  6. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    Normally this thread would have been the state of the team or what ever it is I've called it thread in January but this a special edition.

    I don't like the idea of throwing coaches under the bus but this is an exception that rule big time. All signs point in one direction we didn't just magically get to where we are at this stage.

    Fonsos
     
  7. I posted this in the game thread, but realize it actually fits better here.

    Look, all season long I've waffled back and forth on this one issue: How talented, really, is our team? For several years most of us have been high on the talent on this team. But in the end, the results have not been there. We've had reason to get excited. As far as I can tell, there are really two basic options.
    1) We simply are not talented enough. If this is true, than it's falls on both Frank and Carlos' heads.
    2) We have enough talent to compete in MLS. If this is true, this is totally in Carlos' court.

    I'm not sure we are as talented as I thought, but, surely we have enough talent to make the playoffs. I think that's why I'm not feeling very patient with the coach. In my opinion it's usually ludicrous to get rid of a coach after one year. But I'm not convinced that fits our situation.

    The other thing this thread has got me thinking about is this: It looks like we need help all over the field. But chances are that some of these same guys would thrive with one and/or several of the following: New coach, new system, new team-mates. The tricky part, the part Frank and Carlos are supposed to figure out, is which guys do you give up on, and which ones do you hitch your future to? And that is the question that will keep all of us arguing for eternity.

    Could it even be something as simple as chemistry? Maybe. But I tell you what, if the Fire could produce one more Damani Ralph or Ante Razov, or Nowak, and a whole lot of the players we are screaming about now become top MLS performers. I don't know if that comes down to chemistry or talent. Maybe a mixture of both.

    In the end, I suspect we've got a case of a coach who can't put it together for us, mixed in with players who are either not as good as we thought and/or can't play well together. It feels like we ought to nuke the whole thing and start over, but Jerry Krause reminds us all that maybe that's not such a good idea after all. But we sure as heck need someone to figure out which parts to fix first, and to get fixing them now.

    I could pretend I know what that is. But if I really truly had that talent and knowledge, I'd be making decisions rather than analyzing them here on BS :)
     
  8. Fanaddict

    Fanaddict Member+

    Mar 9, 2000
    streamwood IL USA
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    A team with mcbride,collins john,Ljungberg,castillo,pappa,and nyarko can't score? This team needs to be overhauled next year.
     
  9. snkscore

    snkscore Member+

    Jun 24, 2007
    La Grange, IL
    The keeper thing has been rehashed 1000 times. CBA rule changes, coupled with an overassessment of Dykstra made Busch the odd man out. They had just drafted Johnson and it was time for a change.

    Dykstra wasn't great, but he also didn't *hurt* us much. Our record with him was not bad. He stopped the shots he should stop, but he didn't make any great saves. He made 1 or 2 mistakes, and so has Johnson, but in the end we are left in a MUCH BETTER POSITION with Johnson than if we kept Busch. This is 1 move that really worked out for the best for everyone involved (except Busch's big pay cut, which gives you a pretty good idea that we were overpaying).

    Like some others have said... I'm not a "fire the coach/GM b/c we lost 2 in a row" type of guy. But I am really disappointed with CDLC. I don't see attacking soccer, and I don't see improvement in the team. I won't be too upset if they give him another year, but I won't be upset if he leaves either.

    I don't know what the answer is.
     
  10. sWo97

    sWo97 Member+

    Aug 18, 2008
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Maybe the team needs to watch The Karate Kid or Rocky before every match to get some inspiration.

    Or Ladybugs.
     
  11. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    ...and it should be sense we had one of the best keepers in the league and gave him up for basically nothing. It was one of the many moments of stupidity at its finest moment with our club and there have been alot of those moments this season-too many. You have a good keeper, you keep him and pay him. It's that simple, he's earned it. This keeper we got rid won the starting job at a club headed to the play-offs. Scream CBA all you want but our club F..ked this one up big time. We're damn lucky Johnson has worked out because Dykstra, whom I still feel could be a good keeper in the future, obviously wasn't ready.

    Last season and the year before, I heard the line from a number of Fire fans that "...this is the most talented team ever...." and each time I heard it, I wanted to throw up or slap some sense into the knucklehead(s) saying it. Many were saying it because we had Blanco overlooking the fact that this was a good team, no more no less and damn well not the best Fire team, player for player 1998 & 2000 teams were light years better than anything we've had and it's the standard this club needs to get back to.

    This team has the personnel to make the play-offs. The large number of problems we've seen this season is a coaching issue. When you see this many problems it's a serious coaching issue. It's not a Frank Klopas issue, it's a coaching issue.

    As twisted as this sounds, many wanted Denis out and should have been damn careful of what you asked for, well it's been f..king miserable season and it falls squarely on the coach. Personally, I have a hard time believing Frank made the call on hiring DLC as well as the players he brought with him but that's speculation on my end. What's even more interesting to me is how on earth did a new coach bring in new players and NONE of them have panned out. Even when you run the odds of this happening it doesn't make sense--the numbers just don't work out. None at all, this is the stuff that makes your head hurt.

    We have good players on this team, we've got lousy ass coaching. This is an easy one to figure out in my book.

    Fonsos
     
  12. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    I think most people around here have figured this out. I don't see anyone ranting about how great the coach is.

    I disagree that we'd be better off with Hamlett though. He was stubborn to a fault and it hurt the team significantly. I still don't understand some of CdlC's motivations and decisions. Maybe there's a method to the madness but I don't see it.
     
  13. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    Yeah, you're right about Hamlett, because he only....
    got the team to 2 conference finals
    getting the best from young players
    Understanding how the league works
    did a good job of managing the team through injuries

    yeah, we're better off without him, yeah we were hurting alot with him at the helm, I'm following you.....
    :rolleyes:
    Fonsos
     
  14. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    Hamlett needs help with tactical decisions and he needs help improving individual players on the technical side of things. He needed help. He wasn't ready.

    De los Cobos has proven he can coach a squad of players. His biggest failure may simply be cultural which is something Denis obviously had.

    If we're going to resort to on field results to prove points, then I'll just say that with Denis we never won a cup and for the first time in our history went three years straight without at least making it to the US Open Cup final.

    Conference Championships don't mean a hill o' beans in my opinion. Denis made it to those with an established core of players and what we have this year is a new core for better or worse. There's no straight comparison to be made but I shudder at the thought of Hamlett trying to coach a bunch of players that had not already come together.

    Maybe this year he'd at least punch Conde and possibly wake him out of this funk.
     
  15. Thebizkit

    Thebizkit New Member

    Sep 6, 2006
    What makes this so frustrating is that you cant tell what the real issue is, in baseball you can see that the team is not performing because of lack of hitting, pitching or a bad bullpen, in basketball you obviously can tell who is performing and who is not, in football you can tell if an offense or defense is being used correctly.

    I look at the Fire and on paper they are a top 5 team yet they look like absolute crap on offense and inconsistent on defense! It has to be the coaching, honestly you look at the pieces on offense and yeah I understand we dint have a creative mid field for most of the season and we kept running out 1 forward but damn, how the hell is it possible to just not be any good on offense with the players we have?!

    The tick tack style of passing, the inability to pass the ball farther than 10 yards and the terrible spacing is frustrating but its also something that a coach should be able to improve yet here we are... more talented than when we started and yet worse...
     
  16. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    When in the HELL did you become an expert on Coaching abilities?
    What credentials do you bring to the table to make such a comment?
    Man, that's a F..ed up statement coming from someone who hasn't coached jack squat.

    You're actually RIGHT. See we have this culture of winning with the Fire and he's not fitting in with us culturally. Look at the win-loss column, it's a serious cultural issue for all of us Fire fans. (rolls eyes). It's his coaching ability and it ain't working here. Simply put.

    What other results would we resort to? Yeah, let's overlook the fact that we at least approached the damn tournament seriously. What happened to us this year in Open Cup? Lemme refresh your memory, he (coach) more or less blew it off or from what we can all gather in his comments afterwards that it wasn't as high a priority as the other tournament, you know the one we also got our asses handed to us in.

    It felt good being in one last season despite not winning it. It felt good watching our team competing in the play-offs last season. Nothing about this season feels good, nothing. By the way unless you actually play on the team and are a part of the locker room, you and others should keep your comments to yourself about what happens in it. Players are also smart enough to use "supporters" when they see fit or as we said back in the day, "Don't get played".

    Do you actually think before you post or are you just spouting off the crap you're told from the club? Actually are you working for them now? I find it rather odd that every time someone posts something negatively about this club that you take up the mantle defending them. I know you're no longer in charge of Section 8 but one of the things supporters should do for their club is to call them out when they're screwing up.

    Fonsos
     
  17. Fanaddict

    Fanaddict Member+

    Mar 9, 2000
    streamwood IL USA
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    We've knocked sarachan,hamlett and now cobos. I'm not saying any of these guys are alex ferguson or jose mourihno in disguise but maybe the problem is we don't have players who can put the ball in the net.
     
  18. Es Brennt

    Es Brennt Member+

    Feb 25, 2003
    Shermer, Illinois
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Fonsos yer crackin me up with the Hamlett praise. He's gone. I agree with your intervention rallying cry, and I am also sickened by the state of the season, but the Hammer love fest is a bit much and a bit past it's expiration date.

    I am absolutely with ya on being ready to see CdlC go. I don't even care if it's a knee jerk emotional reaction. I don't care if giving a coach two years is some sort of norm or expectation. He blew off the Open Cup and we're gonna miss the playoffs, that's not acceptable.

    I can't even describe to ya on this forum how monumentally disappointed I am about our playoff predicament. It's beyond trophy aspirations.
     
  19. bunge

    bunge BigSoccer Supporter

    Oct 24, 2000
    Let's not forget that 2007 sucked so we've now bashed Osorio as well. That just about covers everything.
     
  20. burningfire

    burningfire Member+

    May 15, 2009
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I agree with you.
    Our so called talented players like Pappa,Nyrako ,Ljungberg,Collins and Nery can't work as a team.These players should keep it simple and be a unit.
     
  21. Tom Dunmore

    Tom Dunmore BigSoccer Supporter

    Mar 11, 2005
    Indianapolis
    http://www.socceramerica.com/article/39699/peter-nowak-i-give-them-a-soccer-bible.html
     
  22. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
    :D
    Fonsos

    We were supposed to be upgrading. We clearly haven't. So there's a few things I'm harping on til someone can say told ya so and they are:

    1. Hamlet as a coach - we haven't done better

    2. This new style of soccer, who knew it involved watching our team get weekly ass kickings and a style none of us can identify.

    Fonsos
     
  23. Fonsos

    Fonsos Member

    Sep 21, 2000
    Chicago
  24. Tom Dunmore

    Tom Dunmore BigSoccer Supporter

    Mar 11, 2005
    Indianapolis
    I quoted Piotr Nowak. It's an interesting interview with him, who the ******** cares if it's on Soccer America?

    I think the Fire has long lacked the fundamentals Nowak mentions need to be ingrained in teams, so it was worth mentioning. There's no need to be so patronising in your response, but whatever.

    So I'll quote him again as I still think it's worth discussing (I'm not suggesting it's THE answer, this is a place to discuss ideas): "Before the preseason, I give them a playbook, a soccer bible, with the values and principles we are going to use. They know how the team is going to play, they know the tactics, they know the values and principles of how we play and what we are as a team."

    It's clear the Fire is lacking those values and principles as a team, they're completely confused about what they're doing from all appearances on the field I've seen this year.

    Nowak's "soccer bible" is food for thought in that regard, and I'd sure take an intervention of Piotr coming and managing this team instead of CdLC.
     
  25. Thebizkit

    Thebizkit New Member

    Sep 6, 2006
    I see nothing wrong with this, heck it sounds like a damn good idea. Some of the futbol snobs on here need to calm down, the MLS will never be the EPL so if something like this leads to better/smarter players then why not?
     

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