With the rubbery stench of 2015 still acrid-stuck upon our nostril hair, we brave look forward to a new season. It will be a season of goals and triumphs and as Grant Wahl will have you believe, it will be a season of ambition. But for those of us who consider ourselves gourmands of disaster, it will also be a season of tire fires, MLS Continental Tire Fires, that is.
When we last checked in on the various and sundry tire fires of MLS, it felt as if a few clubs had gone full Centralia, PA (you should go read that link if you don’t get the reference, it’s worth it). But have things changed during the off-season? It’s time to find out. Let’s take a look at who comes into the 2016 MLS season with their tire fire raging like a Dylan Thomas poem.
5. Orlando City SC
Orlando had a remarkably good 2015. Sure, they didn’t make the playoffs, but they drafted an absolute diamond in the rough in Cyle Larin and put together a surprisingly well-rounded squad. If not for the poison pill centerback of Sean St. Ledger (ok, he wasn’t the only problem), they might have made the playoffs.
But oh the owners and their expectations. A good debut season wasn’t enough, no they had to tempt fate. I’ll admit the ins and outs of what the hell happened this off-season was mostly off my radar (just go read this). The short of it, though, is that owner Flávio Augusto da Silva canned assistant coach Ian Fuller (who’s now in Minneosta, thanks Flávio!) and demoted general manager Paul McDonough. He brought in a Portuguese executive named Armando Carneiro, who then suddenly departed from the club.
I’ll admit, this is a small tire fire as MLS Continental Tire Fire #POWERRANKINGS go, but where there is a meddling owner who makes bizarre decisions that instantaneously backfire, well, there’s a tire fire a brewing. Trust me.
4. New York City FC
When you have a club run by a human rights violator you’re pretty much guaranteed automatic entry into the MLS Continental Tire Fire #POWERRANKINGS. But NYCFC aren’t a one trick pony, no. Let’s take stock: intractable stadium morass? check. Playing in a baseball stadium? check. Hilariously lame hooligan fights? check. Old designated players? check. Hiring the boy-wonder of US soccer management and then chucking his ass on the street? check check check. NYCFC is like an Old Country Buffet of absolute crappiness. Bring tupperware, because there’s enough for left-overs.
3. Chicago Fire
The greatest moment of the last five or so years in Chicago was when Mike Magee starred in the MLS parody of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Other than that? Well, they set a record for the most draws in a season. They also had a great, young prospect in Harry Shipp, but oh, they shipped (yeah, it’s a tire fire, so you get tire fire puns, deal with it) him off to Montreal.
Like most tire fires, Chicago’s has been one of gross neglect. But in the offseason, Andrew Hauptman brought in Nelson Rodriguez to right the ship as GM. Rodriguez was seen as a pretty smart hire outside of Chicago, but it remains to be seen whether or not his hiring of Veljko Paunović will lead to actual success on the pitch. They did win the Simple Invitational in Portland, a trophy that I’m sure will make someone’s Aunt happy.
Let’s face it, Chicago has been struggling ever since they got rid of Peter Wilt, the man who brought them into the league and engineered their move to Toyota Park in Bridgeview, IL. Fitting, then, that at the Fire’s nadir, Man of the People, Comrade Wilt, is Johnny-on-the-Spot with a new shiny NASL team in Chicago. Just when you’re out drowning marital problems in a few drinks, here comes Wilt, sidling up to you at the bar, giving a softly-felt smile and ordering you an Old Fashioned. “Well, maybe just one…”
2. Colorado Rapids
Pablo Mastroeni has a bit of the life-long government bureaucrat in the department of housing to him. His job performance as head coach of the Rapids causes you to jerk your head back and forth to make sure everyone else is thinking the same thing: “Surely. SURELY. This man should have been fired by now, right?” Everyone else in the room shakes their heads with wide eyes as if to say, “I’m as confused as you.” Where that bureaucrat peddles in casual sexism, a complete lack of self-worth or ambition, and a watch-maker’s precision of incompetence, Mastroeni excels at not winning games, fitting as many defensive midfielders into a formation as possible, and–worst of all– he displays an addict’s compulsion to misusing God’s gift to humanity, Dillon Powers.
But Mastroeni’s flaws as manager are merely the kindling perched atop the Rapids tire fire. The Rapids appear to function as a broken home. Their owner and father, Stan Kroenke has a few other families, each of which he neglects in a remarkably unique fashion. The carpet-bagger hasn’t put his hat upon the hat-rack in ages and every year Rapids fans still hold on to the misguided hope that he’ll send a birthday card.
During the off-season there have been stirrings of life from the Rapids though, but not before some questionable moves. They lost Clint Irwin, Michael Harrington, and Drew Moor–none of these players were absolutely crucial to future success. But they followed these moves by bringing in Shkelzen Gashi from Basel and this week they signed Jermaine Jones. They also look poised to sign Tim Howard in the summer. Might we call this ambition? Perhaps. But it feels more like Pappa Kroenke forgot to buy a birthday present this year, he scrambles to find whatever was left on the shelf labeled “US International.”
1. MLS
I can’t tell who is making who look like the biggest chump, but Miami United Beckhams is one of the greatest cock ups in this history of MLS. As in, it makes the all-time MLS Continental Tire Fire #POWERRANKINGS next to a team in Tampa that had a mascot that was a CYBER F*CKING MUTANT and Chivas USA. Not only do we have an intractable stadium situation that has moved more time than your bassist, but now we’ve got Qataris who are likely in on the deal. At least we know they’ll get a stadium built on the cheap. You know, because of all the slave labor. Too soon for slave labor jokes?
I would put this down to Miami at the top of the MLS Continental Tire Fire #POWERRANKINGS, but you have a couple other problems to throw in. After everyone lauding MLS moving into MLS 2.0 and perhaps even 3.0 (whatever the hell that means), MLS turning 21 means that someone bought too many Fireball shots. We all know Beckham will want a Miami United, Atlanta is entering inexplicably as United, and yet MLS has decided to force the team that has an actual real claim to the name (and, you know, is an actual team) to change its name. Add to that and you have Atlanta entering the league in an NFL stadium, playing on turf. Maybe it’s time we recognize that MLS never changed versions. Rather, it has stayed the same and made some bad decisions and some good. And for a period, it brought in teams like Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver that had pre-established DNA that made the league seem like it had upgraded.
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