Man, so the Fire's twitter feed has clips of Pavel and Jorge f@#kin' Campos welcoming Torres to the Fire! Looks like Evan and Co. are seriously working to (re)build the bridge between our former guys and the current players, organization, and fan base. (And Campos has a good comment about Torres/youngsters knowing who the hell he is)
I thought I'd see what Pardo is up to. Looks like he is an ambassador/scout for the Bundesliga. IDK if it was offered, but he said he was not interested in becoming technical director of Amèrica. https://www.americanpost.news/pavel-pardo-is-not-interested-in-being-the-sports-director-of-america/
Okay, but what about being a sporting director for a team "in" America?!? [emoji848] Good for Pardo. Much like Arne, he should take whatever job he wants. Either/Both would be amazing here, but they have other ambitions.
It just occurred to me that with the draw, the Fire will not be at the bottom of the Eastern Conference after week 1. Now that's something to be optimistic about! I'm not sure how to process this information though.
I think we're the only team in the league that hasn't been scored on, and thats with 2 away games and only one home.
Follow-up optimism: I'm not sure why statistically, but sportsclubstats.com has the Fire at the highest chance of making the playoffs: 80.6% and second highest (.01% behind NYRB) for the supporters shield: 10.4%
Models are dependent on sufficient sample size. Needless to say, sample size is currently grossly insufficient. That said, the eye test and results appear to indicate that a whole lot of "experts" were way wrong with their Fire pre-season prediction.
A contrarian view to recent hopium consumption: 1) Miami Beckhams are crap 2) Orlando just lost at home to crappy Cincinnati 3) DC beat crappy Charlotte and won at the death against crappy Cincinnati Johnny Russell and Graham Zuzi are up next to finally give our wide defenders a true test. The Sporkc are off to a slow start, but I'll get a little more optimistic if we get three points against a team that's been tough on us in recent years.
the counter to the counter: the Fire benefit from weak early opponents to gel and gain confidence that will propel massive improvement as our DP winger joins and Ezra gets his sea legs with this roster
This. Given a choice, a ramp up of opponents' strength is far preferable than successive stern tests right out of the gate. Especially, considering that we practically have a new team, new coach and staff. Thank you, MLS schedulers.
This thread sank to page 5 which seems both sad and understandable. I'm still optimistic as the Fire have been fighting the injury bug in combination of a string of inexplicably terrible refereeing calls and a slew of suspensions as a result. For all the recent losses it's important to remember that each lineup that started the last 6 games was far from the lineup most of us (or Ezra) would choose if all those people were fit and available for selection. We also don't know if anyone selected is nursing injuries and playing through them anyway. It's early enough yet not to panic and on paper this is a good squad if only they could all line up together.
I agree we don't have any depth, but the pieces among the presumed full-squad starters and top two or three subs is good enough to be competitive I think come July we'll be decent if there aren't many injuries
OK I'm bumping this optimist thread because I'm hoping we see an attacking group of Shaqiri, Torres, Mueller and Kacper starting tonight and the goals flow forth. Maybe we drag Guitierrez, Offor and Herbers off the bench to seal the win the last 25 minutes or so. This article says all 4 are healthy and available for selection. This could be the FIRST time we'll see the best 11 available for selection and I think tonight will give us an idea of where this team actually stands and a glimpse of what is actually possible? https://www.allchgo.com/2022/05/17/...njury-updates-and-shaqiri-is-making-how-much/