Crown of Madness

Oh hi! I’m Jiggly. And it’s a Tuesday.

This past matchday, I proved that I am very emotionally stable and can be trusted to be on social media during a Fire game. I’m sure everyone in the fan discord can agree, having seen my game-time meal of a bowl of Cocoa Krispies with a can of PBR on the side. Anyway, I’ve been busy this past weekend because when I sent my friend last week’s column to explain what’s been going on with the team, she read the whole thing. And that meant she got to the bottom, saw I wanted Baldur’s Gate 3, and then just sent me a copy of it. So yeah… Been busy with that over the weekend. It’s also why I’m writing this late at night again because I played it for too long. But that doesn’t really change what I’m writing about, because I think that predictable loss out west really helps pave the way to talk about some of the bigger issues around the Fire.

Crown of Madness

I mentioned last week that I have no clue where my copy of Art of War was. It’s not my copy, it’s my dad’s. He let me borrow it a few times to read. One book he did just sorta toss into my room one day is a 50-year-old copy of The Prince by Machiavelli. I hadn’t opened it until just now. I was hoping to find something to prove my point, but my first attempt at skimming through to find some relevant quotes in there brought up nothing but a strange smell from the paper. So instead of using classic political literature to illustrate my point, I guess I’m just gonna have to use Dungeons and Dragons. And the title here is an allusion to the second level spell, “Crown of Madness”, which is a spell that causes the target to begin erratically attacking everything around them that moves. The name of the spell itself is likely an allusion to the Shakespeare quote from King Richard IV Part 2, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” a line that speaks to the struggle of remaining calm in the face of so much responsibility. So I guess in a way, we did get back around to classical literature. But I haven’t made my point yet.

There is no crown in Chicago anymore. There never should have been. But, there is a throne that is very hard to sit in at Chicago Fire HQ. And that’s Georg Heitz’s seat.

I think we’re all very aware that he’s barely even on “The Hot Seat” anymore. This guy has fans demanding his head on a pike. And there’s a lot of good reasons for that. First of all, he doesn’t seem to understand MLS as a league. I cannot speak to the accuracy of this, but I remember there being a rumor tossed around on Twitter that he was actually refusing to learn MLS roster regulations. While that’s a fairly nasty rumor, his actions speak to a very real possibility that he was doing just that. In fact, what was much more substantiated is that Heitz kept previous GM Nelson Rodriguez around at the club just so that he could deal with the MLS-specific details of the deals he made. If that wasn’t enough of a betrayal to many fans who were disenfranchised by Nelson’s actions as President, it wasn’t even worth it. Most of the time where there was an MLS-specific contract type or roster slot, Heitz’s signing of choice has seemed to completely miss. Stuff like Designated Players, players bought down with Targeted Allocation Money, and the use of international slots in general have been wildly unhelpful.

Next, we need to talk about his inconsistency at identifying talent. Because while there’s always ups and downs in scouting, there’s always gonna be more whiffs than home runs, but there’s a certain level of risk that needs to be assessed when it comes to these sort of signings in MLS’s structure. Jhon Jader Durán was a fantastic find, Carlos Terán is really starting to improve and grow into his role. What the hell were Jhon Espinoza and Stanislav Ivanov? Those were two valuable roster slots, valuable international slots, used up on a couple of dudes who didn’t play much. And when they did play, it wasn’t anywhere close to the level needed by this club. Those weren’t even that risky compared to Heitz’s first DP signings. Robert Beric was signed to be a goalscorer and hadn’t touched double-digit goals in a season in half a decade. You think a guy struggling at Saint-Étienne is gonna work out in MLS? You think a fairly pedestrian winger out of Defensa y Justicia is a good idea for a project? We may bash Jairo Torres right now, but Ignacio Aliseda was such a worse idea in every way. And I’m mentioning the teams because those leagues are not better than MLS. Someone might fight me on this, but I think France and Argentina are two countries dominated by a few great teams and the rest are about MLS-level. If you can’t handle playing against Strasbourg, how the hell are you showing up against Nashville? The fact that these guys were given a special role despite their previous performances is grounds enough that Heitz hasn’t exactly been as focused as he could be when scouting.

Finally, I spoke about this last week, but there is a complete disconnect between the coaches’ strategic goals and the club’s transfer policies. We’ve sat here staring at the gaping hole at striker for this club for years now. Not just a starter, but depth as well. Yet somehow, the Fire have signed a bunch of wingbacks and wingers that play in a style that doesn’t really fit anything that we play and don’t really improve on the player who is already there. Like, how are any of these pieces supposed to fit together? There were times during the off-season rumor mill where it almost felt like Heitz simply ran out of space before realizing that he could do that. The team we were left with was, with maybe a little exaggeration, one of the worst squads ever built for this club. In previous years, there have been some bad teams, but I think 2021 had to have been one of the first seasons where I went in and didn’t say “This team can work on paper.” Striker isn’t the only spot that’s been left vacant. There’s been center-back issues, central midfield issues. Basically anywhere that isn’t the goalkeeper has had a depth problem both on the bench where depth usually is and on the pitch within the starting eleven.

The problem with talking about how bad Georg Heitz has been at his job is that you’ve gotta start asking who is gonna take over for him. We’ve already put a vague list together to describe this perfect executive. They need to be an MLS guy, someone who understands the league. We can bring in some other random dude who was successful in Europe, but we’ll get stuck with the same problems as before. We need someone who can use the roster rules to their advantage and get an edge on the rest of the league.They also need to be someone who can tell when a guy isn’t right for the Fire. Again, scouting is a difficult and complicated thing, but if you sign a guy to be your main goal-scoring threat and they never score goals, then you’re clearly not a serious person. It needs to be someone who recognizes who is worth the roster slot and who isn’t. This guy might eventually become a solid player, but for now they take up an international slot while they can’t even make the bench (side-eyes Chinonso Offor). There also just needs to be actual communication with the coaching staff. I know I have made arguments that this doesn’t happen, but that can’t be true. There’s gotta be some communication, there has to be a plan made collaboratively by both the coach and the GM. But the thing is that we haven’t seen one and maybe that’s because the GM never actually stuck to that plan. It doesn’t even look like there was a plan. At the end of the day, there’s so many basic systems that work, but the basis for almost any formation and strategy can be found in the legendary Club América formula created by Panchito Hernández in the 70s: You need a Portería (GK), a Central (CB), a Contención (DM), a Creativo (AM), and a Goleado (ST). Everything else around that is just set dressing for making the system work. Get them, get that spine right, and then let the rest be informed by what the coach wants to do.

So, with all of those specifications for who the Fire’s savior needs to be, now we just have to put a nametag on it.

…

There are no names.

In fact, why would anyone actually take this job? There are so few people who can fit all the criteria. We need someone who can not only do all of those things, but is available and wants to be here. And before anyone mentions Carlos Bocanegra, I just want you to look up why he’s not Atlanta’s GM anymore. Let’s actually check up on the current GM of Atlanta United, Garth Lagerway. Everyone wanted Garth, we were all in on him coming home to the Chicago area, but he didn’t. Instead, he chose a new project. Rumors around this subject are very fleeting, but I’ve heard that he was basically told that he’d only have the freedom to sign a single DP. Presumably, Xherdan Shairi would be one of the untouchable DPs alongside either Jairo Torres or Gastón Giménez. That lack of freedom was a dealbreaker for Garth and he moved on to Atlanta. Whether or not that story is true, it’s incredibly plausible because of how bad the contract situation is at the club. It’s not a matter of “We won’t let you do your work,” it’s more a matter of “We have dug ourselves so far into a hole that you’re just gonna have to deal with it if you wanna do this.” That hole is so deep, with the contract situations of multiple underperforming players heavily impacting the team’s ability to maneuver. The Fire made so much money off of the sales of Durán and Gabriel Slonina, but a lot of the GAM and TAM from it had to be put towards paying off the Kacper Przybyłko trade. He, along with Jairo Torres, were good ideas at the time that just haven’t panned out and the Fire have sunk way too much into them to move. There’s such little wiggle room, no sane soccer executive would take on this job.

So, I guess I’ll do it.

This is barely even a joke at this point. I’m currently unemployed and am struggling to find a job that fits my skill-set, so I might as well toss my hat in the ring for a job that I’ve been training my whole life for. Of course it’s a terrible idea. I think a lot of business managers would say that bringing someone with such a personal attachment to the club into a leadership role is a situation ripe for rash decision-making. I also have no experience in the field (I should’ve led with that). But this is absolutely me formally asking Joe Mansueto if he wants me to send my resume in. Because practically nobody is qualified to take on this job and anyone who is has already called the Fire a lost cause. Or they have a job they’re very happy with like Peter Wilt. At this point, the situation for this club is in such a dire place that you’ve gotta do something at this point. Why not chuck the ball downfield?

So yeah, so… It’s literally between me or Peter Wilt. Pick one. Only one of us is currently available. Like I said earlier, I’m very emotionally stable and can be trusted with running the Chicago Fire.

Miscellaneous Notes

Wasted Chances. I don’t know how no one had told me yet that Maya Yoshida had signed for the LA Galaxy. I’d been campaigning for the Fire to get him for years. Then LA just snaps him up mid-season. So dumb.

Contigo Jenni. I think that the solidarity for Jenni Hermoso is incredible, but the situation surrounding it is still so terrible. From FIFA and RFEF’s slow response to a depressing silence from many on the men’s side of Spanish soccer. All of this overshadowing a historic World Cup victory.

Death by Punting. I’ve been working on my NFL preview and found the most amazing statistical anomaly that I just have to share. Punting in football is usually seen as sad and almost unnecessary (just go for it), but the Denver Broncos actually fell apart this past season due to punting. They got an average amount of yards on offense, but the least points. It wasn’t because of turnovers, they just didn’t convert on their drives. How? Well, opposing teams were kicking over 50 yards a punt, regularly pinning them back in terrible field position. So an entire team’s offensive efficiency was scuttled by one of the most looked-over parts of the sport and there’s really nothing they could’ve done about it.

Karlach is my wife now. Just thought I should give a very quick review of Baldur’s Gate 3: It absolutely plays like DnD. You can’t do everything, but you can do enough of the weird stuff to get around problems, like talking your way out of stuff or combining random spells or items. I’m still only in Act One, but I’m having more fun with all the problem-solving than the combat. Honestly, this is just a really big, really complicated high fantasy-themed dating sim.

I love you.

And I’ll see you next week.