For our latest installment, let's lead off with the numbers 42 and 35. Forty-two is the number of goals the Fire have conceded in league play so far this year, which is the worst among non-expansion teams. To understand why that's happening, we look to that other number.
The current Fire roster has 7 defenders seeing regular playing time. Based on a lot of math that I won't go into here, there are 35 possible 4-man combinations of those seven players.
I'm going to hazard a guess that head coach Dave Sarachan has used up about half of them by this point. If you're looking for an underlying cause to the goals against, that's the most obvious candidate. There has been a palpable lack of cohesion that has consistently chipped away at the Fire's defensive efforts this season, taking the team almost precisely one step backward for every step forward the offense takes. As of this writing, the Men in Red have almost yielded a goal for every one they've scored, which is simply not good enough to make a late run through the playoffs.
The irony is that when Honduran internationals Samuel Caballero and Ivan Guerrero and U.S. World Cup veteran Tony Sanneh were acquired before the beginning of the season, general manager Peter Wilt boasted unparalleled depth in the back, a seemingly impenetrable fortress on which championship dreams are built that he even called "one of the best defenses in Major League Soccer history." In practice, it hasn't quite worked out that way, to the point that two players as likely to play in the midfield as in the back - Guerrero and Logan Pause - seem to have become the only two guaranteed starters.
Conventional wisdom says that the perceived increase in quality should have spurred competition in training and delivered on that preseason promise, but the opposite seems to have happened. The lineup changes - when not forced by injuries - appear to be driven more by who isn't playing badly rather than who is playing well, as in the case of Caballero's rough outing against the MetroStars at Soldier Field earlier in the season. The thing about defensive organization is that someone has to take charge of it, and if you can't ever be sure that you'll even play two games in a row, it's difficult to take that onus upon yourself, even if you've got national team experience for whatever country you call home.
I don't purport to be a coach, so I don't know the best way out of this conundrum. On the one hand, I'm a fan of picking a back four and sticking with it as long as possible. On the other, there are going to be guys on the team who, by virtue of their experience with club and country, deserve playing time.
Which brings us to the Fire midfield. You would think that having a longtime U.S. national team veteran and a player with seven domestic championships to his credit would be a coach's dream, except for the unfortunate fact that they play the same position in the current 4-4-2 system. I wrote all the way back in May about how starting Chris Armas and Jesse Marsch was becoming increasingly problematic, and the numbers have borne that out. In league games where both defensive midfielders have started, the team's record is 3-7-1, compared to 10-3-2 when only one or the other gets the nod. In the U.S. Open Cup, the Fire were eliminated in the only game Armas and Marsch both started.
This, in turn, brings up a really sticky situation for any coach. If the more experienced players lose their spots in the starting lineup, does the Fire lose their leadership as well? Can a veteran who has been relegated to the bench still be a motivator for the younger guys on the team, or will they be too consumed with winning that individual starting spot back to focus on the bigger picture?
I don't know the answer to that question, but if this year's Fire squad is going to have a chance at the post-season, they've got to figure it out and break these logjams in the middle of the defense and midfield. The time to be concerned about bruised egos and long-term player satisfaction may be over. If somebody has to be left out of the lineup for the stretch run, and they're unhappy about it, that can be dealt with in the offseason. With the Open Cup now out of the picture, only one goal remains, and that's the MLS Cup, by whatever means necessary.
Chris Costello is a contributor to Chicago-Fire.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Soccer or its teams.
