The Mad Bulgarian

taking a stand for stoichkov!

I'm gonna say this and damn the torpedoes!

Hristo rules. period. Nobody wants to stick up for him anymore, then fine. But he's always been a brilliant player and is still. I know alot of people $hit talk him and he has had his share of ups and downs, but he's still Hristo f'king Stoichkov and there's alot of pride in that. I'm proud he chose to play here in Chicago and very happy he's done all he has for us and our club and I'm proud of him. I'm proud he puts on the Fire jersey & that we can say one of the world's best ever players is on our club.
If he wants to keep playing I want him to stay too. If he wants to retire then that should be his choice but I don't want it to be because he was forced out. That's crap. He deserves to be shown the class, respect and loyalty he has shown us.
I believe he has played alot better than many of the players that so routinely get better accolades and praises. The team always plays better with him on the field and he has consistently shown character, intensity, skill and leadership this season and his entire career with the Fire. Hristo is and does much more than score and pass. He is an inspiring person and player and is as close to an on-field General as there is. He always seems to play his ass off and with the passion, heart and intelligence that seems to sometimes be lacking in those younger and in their primes.
He has spared nothing in his efforts on the pitch and in his teaching of the others-our best and brightest. To be shown the ropes by Stoichkov has got to be both honor and blessing.
He has made many incredible plays and done everything asked of him this year and fought hard to come back. When we lost Game 3 was there any doubting Hristo's frustration or his desire to win? There are others that can sometimes be questioned...but he is not one of them.
This is not an indictment or criticism of the other players, that is not the purpose here. This is to support Hristo Stoichkov and speak up for him where many don't seem to want to. If it is his desire to still play then the Fire is his club. If he will take a coaching position here after retiring from the field, then nothing should stand in his way.
Whatever happens Hristo, thank you and Chicago will always be a home to you.

 

Re: taking a stand for stoichkov!

I don't think you'll get much of an argument for saying that he was brilliant up through 2000. He was great for the Fire in 2000 and he brought us some recognition overseas. In that respect, he was good for us and the league at that time.

Here is where we part ways. You have your opinion and I have mine.

Mine is that we all get older and even the best player eventually loses his abilities and can no longer perform at his previous level. Most soccer players are done before they're 30. A few are in good enough physical or mental shape to last longer. But even they are almost never what they were ten years before. It's part of life and is no reflection of a player's morals, personality or past achievements to say that he has gotten older.

I mean, Diego Maradonna was maybe the greatest player ever in his day. He can be proud of his on-field accomplishments (except the "Hand of God"). But I wouldn't want him on the Fire the way he is now even if he totally ditched the blow.

Would you want Pele on the Fire now that he's what, in his 60s? No? Does that mean you think Pele sucked and he should be ashamed?

I think it's time for Hristo to move on. In fact, last year was that time. I'm sorry if that offends you, but that's what I think.

 

Hristo is still probably the league's most dangerous player. I can't think of any player in the league right now that I'd rather put in the game if we're down a goal and have 30 minutes to go.

 

I'd rather have Hristo coming in than most players, but the most dangerous player in the league? Come on, put down the bong and think about some of the other players in this league. F that, pass the bong to me and then do your thinking.

 

So why substitute for him in a do or die game three of a playoff if he's the most dangerous player in the league? Bradley took him off last night, because he's not so dangerous anymore. Free kicks, yes. Everything else, no.

Hristo, it's time to move on...

As for more dangerous players in MLS.... Stoich is not even the most dangerous Fire player. Even Razoz scored more meaningful goals down the stretch this season.

And the rest of the league? Please.
Twellman, Ruiz, and Graziani are better finishers. Granted, they have better service as well. Donovan is a better creator. I could go on, but I'll just say that almost every team has a striker or dangerous midfielder playing better than Hristo is right now.

Peter is old, Hristo should be gone, Ante's an ass. Thornton looks poor. Beasley may move on. Josh is just too damn injury prone. Will Armas ever be the same player? It's tough to be a Fire fan right now....

 

Re: taking a stand for stoichkov!

Amen I couldn't agree with you more. If he gets forced out then to hell with anyone in the Fire organization who does that. It would be nice to see him play one more year in a assitant player-coach role as a 12th man super sub. I am sure the MLS could put a deal together to make to good for all. He is and will always be the best player to every dawn a Fire Jersey. I highly doubt we will ever see a player voted one of the top 20 in alltime soccer history wear a Fire uniform in our lifetime. HRISTO I LOVE YOU MAN!!!!!!! I will miss your sweet passes your bombs for goals your ability to make something out of nothing. I WILL NEVER forget the way you took over the team and led us to the 2000 MLS finals. No other player on our team could be a killer like you were. PLEASE COMEBACK ONE MORE YEAR!!!!!!

 

Re: Re: taking a stand for stoichkov!

I disagree with you. He carred us for a month last year and still won games for us single handedly. As long as a player can still do that I say keep him on. I don't give a crap of he is 42. Guys like Jordan and Stotichkov come along once in a lifetime. If he wants to still play I say let him play. He is worth season tickets for me. In case anyone missed it he is still a crowd favorite. That breakaway that he beat Meola with shows you the guy can still do it. That was worth my price for admission. Maybe they can work on some mental and physical training exercises for him in the off season. Something tells me the old competetive spirit isn't ready to die yet. Life is too short if he can play and he wants to then as a season ticket holder I ask the Fire to see if there is a possibility to keep him on.

 

Your an idiot. Graziani and Ruiz and twellman could wish they can finsih like that guy did in his prime. He doesn't have the wheels but not anyone of the guys you mentioned can still nail a pass like Hristo still can. Not Ante Twellman or any other player in this league. 40 yard passes right on your foot??? C'mon if you really watched him you can see his is a master mind of soccer guys like can always make an impact on a game in spurts. YOU ARE A MORON. The guy ha sbeen playing with a damm busted foot. More than any of your boys would have done.

 

To me that sounds like, "It's tough to be a fairweather fan right now."

It is never tough to be a fire fan, not even this season.

 

I find this funny.

 

Indeed.

It's never tough or embarrassing to be a Fire fan. It never will be.

The only thing tough or emarrassing is the situations individuals get into to tarnish the emblem. This current situation we're in is hardly enough do that.

 

The only way I'd keep Hristo is on a contract based on minutes actually played, which will never happen.

For those of you who say you'd love to still have him around to bring on with 30 minutes left, sure, I understand that. But not as a function of a League Maximum salary. For the money spent on the dozen or so games we got out of Hristo this year, we could have kept Wynalda and Gutierrez and Jamar, and had some money left over so that when half our lineup went down to injury, we could have brought someone in other than Billy Walsh.

I think it might be time for Bob to clean house.

 

I didn't.

 

Re: Re: Re: taking a stand for stoichkov!

Yeah, Razov was great, wasn't he?

What? You're talking about Hristo? Sorry, but his mind is writing checks his body can no longer cash. Happens to everyone eventually, just look at Viagra sales figures.

Hristo was a great player and I'm sure he still wants to be and hey if I spoke Bulgarian, I'd love to have a few beers with the guy but his playing days are over. O.V.E.R. Done, kaput, finito. It's time for him to bow out now while he has his dignity.

Good for you. I'm a Fire fan, not a Hristo fan or even a Nowak fan. I prefer to see the Fire win Cups which we won't do by carrying a big albatross around our collective neck.

So are Sparky and Humo.

Yeah, that cross in Game 1 was great too but he can only do stuff like that once or twice a season and that's not worth league max. It's probably not worth a roster spot if he's also sitting on the bench for 75% of the time.

As for the times he's not pulling that one good play out of hisbutt, it is kind of embarrassing to watch him. Did you see those two absolute sitters he completely shanked into row Z of Section 8 during Game 2? He was one v. one point blank with the keeper and he couldn't even put the ball on goal, let alone in it. Holy sweet Jebus, even JAMAR could have finished those. Peter Wilt was standing right in front of me and I saw Peter shrug on the first one and then wince on the second. If you're gonna be a bench gnome for 3/4 of the season you gotta justify your roster spot by making those shots when it counts.

For one game, maybe. But if that price also includes watching him sit on the bench for almost the entire season while we could have gotten some younger guys to help us WIN? Nope. Sorry. Not worth it. Better to go get the "Hristo's Greatest Moments" DVD and watch that every now and then.

Maybe they can invent a time machine and make him 25 again. Dude, he's GETTING OLDER. It happens. That's life. Nobody is immune. Not you, not me, not Nowak, not Humo, not Hristo.

I have not the slightest doubt in the universe that Hristo WANTS to be competetive and that he WANTS to do well for us. That's the tragedy of the aging athlete. The brain says "Do it!" but the body says "Are you kidding me?". It's time to give him a testimonial match, thank him for his awesome season in 2000 and then make him a coach or send him on his merry way.

 

First of all, Peter Nowak is, right now, the greatest player ever to don a Fire kit.

As far a Hristo is concerned, I don't think he is "done, O.V.E.R." He is still a player who, in the right circumstances, and used properly, can create scoring chances, as well as make the Fire a more tactically sophisticated team when he is on the field.

In my view, the issue is purely one of economics and roster size. With a bigger cap/smaller salary, and, say, a 20-man roster, I believe that keeping him is a no-brainer.

But this is MLS.

I think that for next year what we should do is keep him on as an assistant coach -- say, with a nice personal services contract with AEG. He continues to train, and really works hard to get into shape, and get more flexible (one of his physical problems, I believe). Then, as the season wears on, and the injuries accumulate (hey this IS the Fire), we have the option of bringing him back for the stretch run/playoffs.

If we don't need him, then great. But he's a great back-pocket option.

 

But Hristo is no longer in his prime. I was at Soldier Field when Hristo and Yordan Letchkov tore apart the Greeks at USA 94. I know the old Hristo.

But that Hristo, the Barca Star, the feared striker, is gone. He's still in the top two or three in MLS on free kicks, but that's it.

And you get excited when a STRIKER makes a forty yard pass? I'm glad you're not the coach. Distribution is nice, but finishing is better. Speed in the final third, beating people off the dribble, actually drawing more than one defender to you, and creating space for others is key. Hristo does none of this anymore.

Hristo may well come back, and if he does, I hope he has a great swan song. But from what I've seen the second half of the season, we should move on.

 

You didn't think it was tough to watch that game Wednesday? Did you even see it?

Getting worked over by the Revs, playing poorly, no creativity in midfield, few chances, Ante playing croth keepy-uppy with Heaps beans. Pure frustration.

As Fire fans who expect more, it was tough to watch. Either the Revs or the Crew will play for MLS Cup. You don't find that tough to see, or at the very least dissapointing?

As for Fair weather, I've stood with the travelling supporters at Crew Stadium and sung my ass off. Please don't put words in my mouth about being a "fair weather fan." Would a fair weather fan even be here on these boards discussing the team, who should stay, who should go, and looking forward to next season?

I'd like to say thank you to theburden for allowing me to be a Fire supporter. You are an asset to the league.

 

Blahgodar-YAH CHRI-sto!

In ten or fifteen years, when US Soccer is something more than a red-headed stepchild in the American sports pantheon, the name of Hristo Stoichkov will hold a very prominent place in the list of people who accomplished that feat.

He passed up many opportunities to continue to play and or coach in Europe which would have been far more lucrative and where you would continue to be an international celbrity. For what? To come to the USA, play for peanuts and be a sports non-entity for everyone but a couple hundred thousand maniacs.

Lots of players would have coasted (paging Lothar Mattaeus, please pick up the white clue phone in the lobby) and leeched off the league. Not Mr. Football. Never less than one hundred percent on and off the field. Playing and promoting the game with passion and, usually with class.

But now it is time for him to move on in his life. As many have said, the mind is willing but the body is ready to check out. And the cost-benefit scales have tipped out of his favor. Plain and simple.

I know he has said he would like to evenutally coach the Bulgarian national team. I would hope that a place could be found for him in the Fire organization for a few more years. It would be fabulous to have him around to help Maximum Bob shape our youngsters.

I sincerely hope the Fire organization will find a way to have an appropriate testimonial match in his honor (Fire v. Barcelona?) so that we can all express our gratitude.

But for me it's Blahgordaryah i doveezdanya.

 

"hey, look at that dead horse. Let's go beat the crap out of it!"

I have been one of HS's biggest supporters on here, but what I am not is a doctor. SteveDM hit the nail on the head when he said "he's playing on a broken foot."

I know it may come as a shock to some of you, but these are not Playstation characters. They are players that come back from injury, and rarely (or never) do they wait until they are pain free.

Is Hristo getting older? Sure. Is that the cause of his recent play? I don't know, although I would argue that his recent play has not been that bad when examining the team play of the Fire.

The point is, that if the last month is representative of what we can expect from him, then it is time to move on. If he (and Peter) are just slow regaining form from injury, then we have an interesting situation.

The Contract is over, so the Fire have the option of negotiating whatever they want, or nothing at all with the guy. I'm sure they would do it after consulting doctors as to his true physical status that none of us are privy too.

Personally, I think it is plausible because the last time he was totally healthy he DID carry us for a month (I believe it was July last year). Unfortunately, thanks to the smelly fish, we will not ever know if 2001 was an abberation when it comes to his strains and pulls.

Rest assured that the Fire will not be handing him a guaranteed contract at the league max, so let the inside people do their job. If it makes sense to take some sort of limited risk -- great. If it doesn't, then let's give him a big send off match (and hopefully retain him as a coach). it may be that the decision has already been made.

Either way, he did provide me with some of my favorite Fire memories, and I sincerrely thank him for that.

There. I'm done with this bloody equine carcass.

 

What's this about the smelly fish breaking his foot?

 

I almost forgot. This gives me a chance to post one of my favorite articles:

http://www.newcitychicago.com/chicago/1101.html

Required reading for any self-respecting Fire fan.

 

Oops. Brain dump. I was thinking of this:

Former Bulgarian World Cup forward Hristo Stoitchkov picked up an injury during last weekend's 1-0 loss to the L.A. Galaxy. The injury occurred when MLS leading scorer Carlos Ruiz tackled Stoitchkov in stoppage time of the game. Last night’s MRI revealed a Grade Two MCL sprain to Stoitchkov's right knee, which will keep him out of action for approximately 6-8 weeks. Stoitchkov was just getting back to playing regularly after undergoing hernia repair on March 1.

 

The trouble with stoitchkov, nowak, wolff and to some extent ante is that over the years they have proven to be injury prone. You can't help the team if you are not out on the field and at least close to being 100 % fit. If they keep hristo does anyone here think he could go the whole year without getting hurt.