Chicago Fire Eastern Conference Final Standings Prediction Bryan Alvarez - 5th Scott French - 5th Paul Kennedy - 5th Will Kuhns - 5th Ridge Mahoney - 4th Mike Woitalla - 3rd Soccer America - 5th Weren't we picked last in 98 too?
no, but don't be surprised if they DO finish last in the East. an underdog role probably is not a bad thing for such a young team anyway.
So this season we officially become the underdog Chicago Fire. That puts all the pressure on our opponents.
Soccer digest picked them for ninth with dc in the tenth spot. This is before a game has been played and before any allocation players are obtained.
1998 SA MLS West. Conf. Predictions for Fire Not that i would keep any of this around or anything - but, in SA's 1998 preview issue, this is how their editors predicted the Fire's first season: Pete Bailey: 6th Ridge Mahoney: 6th Dean Caparez: 6th Amparo Simon: 4th Duncan Irving: 3rd!! Poul Swain: 6th Paul Kennedy: 5th Mike Woitalla: 6th peter
Fine, let them pick us for last place. That will simply make the two teams who don't make the play-offs that much more embarrassed when we go instead of them.
I just want to repeat my words from a previous thread and echo the direct sentiment of Hala, and the indirect of PW by saying, we were the underdogs in '98. There's no need to fear! Underdog is here!
I'm sure he's got that issue with those picks along with a letter saying, "we were wrong, we're sorry" signed by all of them framed and hanging on the wall in his office.
bob made two good points in that article. the first was that we wont be last. the second was that those frat boys at the crew game did look really pitiful.
Its pretty reasonable to think the Fire might finish last in the east for these reasons. 1) The fire were a deep team now they have no depth. Injuries will really really hurt. 2) Beasley, Bocanegra, and Armas (?) could have a busy time with Confed Cup and Gold Cup. Those tournaments are going to have a bigger impact on Chicago than New England (Twellman? JMM? Ralston?). 3) Missing Ante Razov for the first 3 games is going to hurt. 4) Every other team in the east has a bigger potential improvement from last year to this year than the fire Columbus (Buddle a starter, Hejduk, the first american #10?) NE (JMM and better than their record last year) NY (Moreno, Pope, and a refocused Mathis?) DC (Olsen, Stewart, Dema, the Buglarian defender) Chicago (lost Wolff, Nowak, Dema, Stoitchkov and gained Faria) Just face the fact that Chicago looks to have the weakest roster they have ever had. However there are so many questions about NY, DC, NE, and Chicago that it will probably come down to the 5th finisher is just the one with the most injuries. I can't see Columbus finishing 5th this year though unless they have Chicago style mass injuries. I think more than Chicago being good their destiny might turn out to be determined by the fact that NE was mediocre last year and now they are mediocre with JMM, DCU don't have a finisher and el Diablo can't run the team (Earnie is good, but he has never lit up the Dutch league), and that NJ is relying on Moreno and Mathis and if they play like last year NJ is looking like they will watch the playoffs from home. I just don't see Chicago with the upside as the other teams nor the downside.