December 04, 2019

Offseason Outlook: Nashville SC

December 04, 2019/ Ben Wright

As expected for a club building a roster from scratch, Nashville SC have been busy in the offseason. The debut side added three players in the 2019 Expansion Draft and traded for three more immediately following, and just recently signed four players from their USL roster to MLS contracts, bringing the total number of rostered players to 21.

Under head coach Gary Smith in USL, Nashville primarily played a 4-2-3-1 / 4-4-1-1 hybrid that had the 10 operate in a free role in attack and push up with the striker in defense. Smith also used a 3-4-1-2 on multiple occasions, and while that may continue, the roster construction seems to date lends itself to the former option.

May 09, 2019

xN: Deadline Day Musings

May 09, 2019/ Ian L.

It’s always fun to see what happens in MLS when the player store is about to close for the season. Some teams, having resolved all of their player needs early, get to relax and stand in judgment of those teams forced to scamper about on deadline day looking for oh god just ANY decent midfielder please. There’s a parable about an ant and a grasshopper you’ve no doubt heard. The ant stores up all the food they need for winter, while the grasshopper spends its time, I don’t know, hopping on grass I suppose. When winter comes the grasshopper begs the ant for some food but the ant is like lol, and there’s a lesson to be learned in that. Anyway, LAFC are the ant, Colorado are the grasshopper, and New England is the heretofore unseen third character - a drunk shirtless carpet beetle rolling around the snow screaming how they’re going to live forever.

February 19, 2019

Philadelphia Union 2019 Season Preview

February 19, 2019/ Jared Young

The Union faithful have been donning their Sherlock Holmes deerstalkers this offseason. They been dealt a small handful of clues to answer some pretty big offseason questions. Was their 2018 season really their best ever? What became of Borek Dockal? What new tactics will new GM Ernst Tanner ask Jim Curtin to employ? How did they actually land their biggest signing ever in Marco Fabian, and what does this all mean for 2019?

So let’s begin our tour to unravel these not-so-elementary mysteries, my dear Dr. Watson….

February 26, 2018

Chicago Fire 2018 Season Preview

February 26, 2018/ Kevin Minkus

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.

2017 RECAP

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.

February 15, 2017

Chicago Fire 2017 Season Preview

February 15, 2017/ Mike Fotopoulos

If 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.

February 22, 2016

2016 ASA PREVIEW: CHICAGO FIRE

February 22, 2016/ Tom Worville

Here 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:

American Soccer Analysis