Half of the Fire’s season is over. Where has it gone, you ask? Believe it or not, while the Bulls were having their last dance in which the music went on and on and on, the rest of the city’s sporting world continued.
So as a service to those who may need a quick refresher on what has been happening with the city’s Major League Soccer entry, here is a recap of the highlights and lowlights of the first half of what General Manager Peter Wilt calls the Fire’s “first dance.”
REST IS OVERRATED
As the season opener approached things were shaky. Of the five foreign players allocated to the Fire, only Peter Nowak was with the team two days before the first game. One, goalkeeper Jorge Campos, was playing with his Mexican League team. Jerzy Podbrozny was entangled in diplomatic red tape involving his visa and the other two, forward Roman Kosecki and defender Lubos Kubik, were logging many hours in flights to Ft. Lauderdale to join the team.
Kubik and Kosecki arrived at the team hotel late Thursday night, practiced Friday and started the game Saturday. Kubik played all 90 minutes and Kosecki scored the first goal in team history as the Fire beat Miami 2-0.
HOLLYWOOD HOMECOMING
If someone wrote a script detailing what happened on the night of April 4 at Soldier Field and mailed it to a Hollywood producer, it would have been sent back. Too sappy, too melodramatic.
There is one link to Chicago’s soccer past–the Sting–and its present–the Fire. That link is Mather High School graduate Frank Klopas. Signed out of high school to play with the Sting, the 31-year-old Klopas was brought home in a February trade with Columbus.
Playing in front of 36,444 fans in the Fire’s first home game, Klopas scored both goals as the Fire won its second straight, 2-0, over Tampa Bay.
“This is tremendous,” a visibly moved Klopas said. “This is more than I ever imagined. If I never score again I’ll be the happiest man ever.”
WWF LOOK OUT!
It might be fun to invite the reserved, cautious coach of the Fire, Bob Bradley, to lunch with his loquacious Los Angeles Galaxy counterpart, Octavio Zambrano.
The first real rivalry in the three-year history of Major League Soccer may have been born in the Rose Bowl on May 30. It was after the Fire handed the Galaxy its second loss of the season, both to Chicago.
“It’s difficult to play against a team that plays not to lose,” Zambrano said. “Our style is to go all out and when a team’s response is to stay back and defend 100 percent, it doesn’t make for a very exciting game.”
“Personally, I couldn’t care less what Octavio says or thinks,” Bradley said. “But our players were very angry and take a lot of pride in how we play.”
Coming from Bradley, those are as close to fighting words as you’re going to get.
LONG FIVE-GAME MARCH
After starting the season with two victories, it seemed as though the Fire had this MLS thing all figured out. That changed in a hurry.
The Fire proceeded to drop its next five games, some in exasperating fashion. The biggest problem was scoring goals. Simply put, the Fire couldn’t.
The first three games were 1-0 losses. After playing a hard 76 minutes against then-dangerous Kansas City, the only goal came on a rebound after a brilliant Zach Thornton save. In San Jose, Thornton made his first mistake of the season and it resulted in a Ronald Cerritos goal and another loss.
The third game was the much ballyhooed Jorge Campos World Tour night against the MetroStars. Playing in a Brazil jersey and Michigan basketball shorts, because he gave his regular uniform to adoring fans two nights earlier in Los Angeles, the 5-foot-6-inch neoned keeper was on the short end of an Alexi Lalas header in a third consecutive one-goal setback.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE
Easily the biggest surprise of the first half of the season has been goalkeeper Thornton. Thought to be a caretaker until Campos rejoined the team after the World Cup, Thornton has made the most of his opportunity.
Entering this season, Thornton, who was the Fire’s sixth pick in the expansion draft, played in six games over two seasons, compiling a 2-3 record with a 2.70 goals-against average.
Few then could have anticipated the kind of numbers Thornton has compiled over the first 16 games. He led the league with a 1.06 goals-against average and five shutouts. He was second in the league with his 11 victories. Thornton started the season with 256 straight scoreless minutes. In the season opener, he stopped a penalty kick by Miami’s Carlos Valderrama.
FOREIGN LEGION
When the Fire signed Nowak in December, veteran MLS watchers snickered. A typical MLS signing, they said of Nowak, a player past his prime.
Bradley then followed it up by adding relative unknowns Kosecki, Kubik and Podbrozny. Who are these guys? everyone asked.
Well, they have turned out to be the best collection of foreign allocations in the league.
If there is evidence of what makes a player a star and a leader, it was on display in the June 24 match against Kansas City. Nowak lost the ball in the Wizards’ zone and hustled back to reclaim it. The play occurred in the 88th minute of a game that had long been decided. Nowak goes as hard in the final minutes as he does in the opening.
“We certainly knew he was a world-class player,” Wilt said. “I don’t think we recognized his contribution all over the field. His work rate specifically and his ability defensively and to make the other players better.”
Nowak, the league’s player of the month for May, is a solid MVP candidate. Kosecki and Podbrozny have each been named player of the week and Kubik has played every minute of every game as a stabilizing force in the defense.
WHAT’S AHEAD
There’s the quick recap of the first half, in which the Fire went 11-5 and hold a stranglehold on second place in the Western Conference. But while the first half ended on an upswing, there are potholes up the road.
The first of which is the schedule, which places the team on the road for the month of July. It’s a stretch of five games and could go a long way toward determining whether this team is a legitimate title contender.
The Fire begins the trip with a comfortable hold on second place, so if it can grab six or seven points out of the 15 possible, then it should be positioned nicely when the schedule balances out the last two months of the season.
Can the Fire challenge the Galaxy for first place in the West? The rest of the league will have to help out.
The other potential pothole involves Campos.
He is a fan favorite and is being counted on to lure Hispanic fans to Soldier Field. But how can Bradley sit Thornton, the league’s top goalkeeper? And as the offense has picked up, playing Campos at forward is no longer an option. Klopas can’t even get into the lineup because of the effectiveness of Podbrozny, Kosecki and Ante Razov.
So the pressure will be on Campos to at least be as good as Thornton. Campos thought he would playing with his best friend, Jorge Salcedo. But Salcedo was traded Monday to Tampa. Campos was going to count on Salcedo to help with the transition to a new team and a new city. Now he’s on his own. People in Los Angeles have said that when Campos is not happy, he can be very difficult to deal with.
Bradley has the respect of the players, even the ones who want more playing time. Salcedo, who wasn’t happy sitting on the bench and was feeling left out, still spoke glowingly of Bradley and the organization after he was traded. Led by Nowak, there is strong veteran leadership in the locker room. That may be enough to thwart any problems before they start.
All in all, the last 15 games should be a very intriguing journey.
