By Mike Crampton
The storyline for Toronto FC ahead of their match with the Chicago Fire this weekend couldn’t be clearer: get points and get them any way you can. With persistent rumors of an ideological battle inside the organization beginning to be reported more openly it’s not unreasonable to suspect that results over the next few weeks could have a lasting impact on the direction of the club.
Make no mistake: regardless of whether or not his position is being questioned inside the halls of senior management pressure on Aron Winter is building. The viability of the project he was tasked with heading and his own personal suitability for the job have both become topics of heated debate amongst TFC supporters with each successive loss in the league. Reds fans have endured a lot of losing over the last five years and no matter how seductive the vision of long term success proposed by Jurgen Klinsmann looks a season written off at the beginning of summer will be a bitter pill to swallow.
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In some sense the Chicago Fire might be the most fitting opponent at this critical juncture. Interestingly, the Fire only recently went through an eerily similar set of questions regarding the tenure of their previous manager Carlos de los Cobos and what happened in the Windy City could provide useful lessons for followers of Toronto’s MLS side.
In the fall of 2009 Chicago were a mere penalty shootout away from returning to the MLS Cup final for the first time since 2003. It was actually the Fire’s second consecutive trip to the Eastern Conference Final under coach Denis Hamlett. Unfortunately for them they ran into the hot hand of Nick Rimando in goal and it was Real Salt Lake who ended up lifting the cup in Seattle, after another penalty shootout, a week later. Hamlett was only the fourth ever head coach at the remarkably consistent club since their formation in 1998 but, amid stories of fights with players and accusations of an unentertaining style that didn’t win at home often enough, the Fire elected not to renew his contract for 2010.
In January of 2010 the Fire announced the new man to lead them: respected former Mexican international Carlos de los Cobos. Fresh off a relatively successful three year spell in charge of the El Salvadoran national team de los Cobos (in a story that should sound somewhat familiar to Toronto supporters) was expected to bring a more entertaining “Latin-style” possession game to Chicago. While 2010 was expected to be a rebuilding year for the club results were poor from the beginning and the Fire, even with the mid-season addition of two designated players in Freddie Ljungberg and Nery Castillo to supplement American star Brian McBride, ended up missing the playoffs for only the second time in their history. Worse, the style of play envisioned never really seemed to click and home wins remained just as rare.
The perception among many observers was that de los Cobos, like many foreign managers before him, was failing to adapt to the particular environment of Major League Soccer. His position wasn’t helped during the off-season prior to 2011 when he gave a somewhat infamous Spanish language interview to ESPN Deportes in which he appeared to agree that MLS was a decidedly poor level of play and that he was “used to a different kind of soccer.” It was a statement that might have been absolutely true – one could argue he was caught being too honest – but was seized on by critics as proof of his disconnect from the realities of management in the league.
Eventually, after a nine game winless run and a record of 1W-6D-4L to start the year, the pressure became too much and de los Cobos and the Fire decided to “part ways” towards the end of May 2011. To put that start in context the Fire were behind first year Aron Winter’s Toronto FC in the standings at the time Carlos was let go.
Technical director, MLS veteran, and a man long associated with Chicago soccer Frank Klopas was appointed interim coach. It took a little while but eventually the players, including jettisoned TFCer Dan Gargan, responded to his leadership and from late August on ended the season as the hottest team in the league with a 7W-1D-2L run that nearly saw them sneak their way back into the playoffs. Of course the win that kicked off the turnaround just had to be a 2-0 victory over Toronto FC. It was announced that Klopas would be staying on as coach at the conclusion of the 2011 season.
So as Toronto FC and the Chicago Fire get set to face off for the first time in 2012 it may be worth keeping recent history in mind.
In team news captain Torsten Frings is expected back for the Reds for the first time since sustaining injury in the season opener in Seattle but Chicago will be able to call on their own new German international defender Arne Friedrich. News out of training Friday is that striker Danny Koevermans has picked up an injury while Nick Soolsma remains out. The Fire had expected to be able to field returning attacker Chris Rolfe but word is that he has also been ruled out with an ankle injury.
The Fire’s form has been middling so far in 2012 with only one outright victory over a weak looking Philadelphia side to their name along with a couple of draws but, like every team who will visit BMO Field in the coming months, they’ll surely look at the weekend as an opportunity to pick up three road points. Whether or not they achieve that or whether TFC manages to earn their first points of the season will surely prove an important chapter in finding out if Aron Winter ends up the next Carlos de los Cobos to be chewed up and spit out by Major League Soccer.