Let me start by saying this, there are a lot of things I think the Chicago Fire could have done better this off-season related to their move to Soldier Field, their new logo, and their roster decisions. Rather than focus on what they’ve gotten wrong, I’m going to try to focus on answering one question: Will the Chicago Fire be a better team in 2020 than they were in 2019?
Read MoreThe only thing the Fire have handled worse than their rebrand this offseason is building their actual soccer team. Quick status update on the soccer side of things for the Chicago Fire: Sporting Director? Nope. Coach? Vacant. Designated players? Zero.
Here’s the thing that makes the least sense in all of this: if you look at underlying metrics, the Fire were really good in 2019. They probably should have made some minor adjustments heading into 2020, maybe a star signing to replace Bastian Schweinsteiger, and then rolled into Soldier Field as a really good soccer team.
Read MoreA successful 2019 season for the Chicago Fire will be predicated on making up for the miscues of their 2018 offseason.
Read MoreExpected goals (xG) has finally made it, the Times of London are including an alternate table for the English Premier League based upon per game xG for this season. While using only which team had the highest xG in a game for determining a winner is problematic, it is still a step in the right analytical direction.
Read MoreWelcome to Setting the Table, this week featuring a whole lot of Houston vs Chicago. Each week we take some time to focus on the best chance creators in MLS from the last weekend. If you want to see the best chances that were wasted check out Lowered Expectations. Here we focus on chances that ended with the ball in the back of the net.
#5 Nemanja Nikolic to Diego Campos, Chicago Fire, 16th minute, 0.369 expected goals
Passes in sequence: 2
The Chicago Fire had a tremendous 2017, and it seems their 2018 squad will mostly look like that one. In many leagues, this stability, paired with the team’s younger players developing further, would spell positive results for the upcoming season. But the increasing amount of allocation money coming into the league means that the Fire’s competitors are stockpiling TAM-level players while Chicago stands pat. In all, the Fire may fail to improve without adding a few more pieces.
The Chicago Fire’s 2017 season should be considered a remarkable one. After two consecutive wooden spoons, the Fire finished the season in 3rd in the Eastern Conference. They put together an 11 game unbeaten streak that had them at the top of the East on July 1st. They had the league’s Golden Boot winner, Nemanja Nikolic, who put in 24 goals. Though they ultimately bowed out of the playoffs with a 4-0 home loss to the Red Bulls in the knockout round, the massive turnaround from 2016 should mark the season a success.
Read MoreFor those who are not familiar with Expected Goal Chains (xGC), the metric looks at all passing sequences that lead to a shot and credits each player involved with the xG. Instead of just looking at expected goals and expected assists, which primarily benefits strikers and attacking midfielders, xG Chains is beneficial to every player involved in a sequence. Most importantly xGC credits those defensive or two-way players who are integral to a play’s build-up but don’t necessarily serve that final key pass. To calculate xGC, I assembled every pass, shot, foul, and defensive action so far in MLS and assigned a unique ID to each passing sequence. When a sequence ended in a shot, each player is attributed with the xG from that shot. StatsBomb defines it very succinctly, so the below steps are stolen directly from them:
Read MoreIf it were truly possible to tank in the Major League of Soccer, the Chicago Fire have been making a valiant effort to test that theory in recent seasons. What was once only considered gross incompetence has been given a shiny veneer of professionalism with the addition of Nelson Rodriguez in 2016. By proceeding to sell everything that wasn’t nailed down for various forms of GarberBucks, the roster began to resemble the closest thing to a full rebuild that the club has desperately needed since the waning days of the Blanco era. The remaining question, as has always been the question in the annual reshuffle of the Men in Red, is will this process actually succeed? Is it even a process at all? If a team fails in the suburbs, does anyone even notice?
There is, however, cause for hope. Piles of league money, in various shapes, sizes, and colors, has slowly turned the roster from a collection of aged out journeymen and long-term projects to…a slightly more cohesive group of journeymen and slightly less speculative projects. The mysterious departure of Harrison “Don’t Call Me Justin” Shipp aside, the outlines of Rodriguez’ plan has been to build prudently through the draft and complement with a very specific type of experience. Everything outside of this, every scrap of dead money, wrung out to sale for as much as he can grab.
Dax is after the jump.
Read MoreHere we go again, another season of MLS and another season preview of the Chicago Fire and how things “might change” and how this “could be their year”. Usually these statements are made in reference to them reaching the playoffs, but I’m just hoping this year they aren’t left at the foot of the table come October.
To put it bluntly, the Chicago Fire were terrible in 2015. The last game of the season summed up their entire year. Lackluster defending, toothless attacking and, ultimately, a defeat to the New York Red Bulls meant they finished the year with just 30 points: less than one point per game and the worst total in the whole league.
Looking at the overall league table, the Fire had the joint leakiest defense in the league with NYCFC, conceding 58 goals (a massive 1.7 per90) but a decent attack, scoring 43 goals (1.27 p90). The sheer number of goals conceded meant that they had the worst goal difference in the league (-15) something that the team will no doubt be looking to rectify this year.
See their Elo rating after the jump:
Read MoreLast year, I wrote about Patrick Nyarko and his contract extension with the Chicago Fire. Fast forward through a rough 2015 campaign and while I wasn't necessarily wrong about the deal, as Nyarko reached more minutes than I had expected and ended up being was a useful option off the bench, the Chicago Fire ended up on the lesser side of the deal paying him more than what he was worth in 2015. That was largely due to injuries that sidelined him the first half of the season, one of the primary reasons I remained rather gloomy concerning the size of the contract.
Nyarko is now "supposedly" headed to DC after requesting to leave the windy city and despite his limited time on the pitch last season there are performance indicators that United could be set to inherent a solid “buy low” candidate should a trade be worked out.
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