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Klopas replaces De Los Cobos as Fire head coach

Carlos De Los Cobos (ISIPhotos.com)

The Chicago Fire never did get going under head coach Carlos De Los Cobos, and the lack of results ultimately led to De Los Cobos departure.

The Fire fired De Los Cobos on Monday (though the team's press release said the sides have "parted ways") and former Chicago Fire standout and front office exec Frank Klopas has been chosen to take over as head coach.

Klopas takes over a Fire team that has struggled all season and has managed just a 1-4-6 record after starting the season 1-0-1.

De Los Cobos failed to produce results after taking over as head coach for Denis Hamlett, who wasn't re-hired by Chicago despite leading the team to consecutive Eastern Conference Final appearances. After a 2010 season seen as a rebuilding campaign, De Los Cobos was given another season to produce results, but the Fire continued to drop points on a regular basis, leading to De Los Cobos' departure.

What do you think of this development? Feel De Los Cobos deserved more time, or do you think he was a mistake of a hire to begin with?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. I was surprised when I learned that he was coming to Chicago. Was language barrier a factor ? I don’t know how good is his English. By the way,the two players from El Salvador are not doing well even in El Salvador, Martinez seem like he lost his touch and Ariel Umannzor is benching with the El Salvador team at the the Copa Oro, being played this week

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  2. Things went downhill with the new ownership and continue to get worse. I was not a fan of Hamlett, but he got the job done despite of management.

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  3. I live in the city walking distance from the Globe and I regularly get calls from some sales guy from the Fire who swears down my throat that TP is only a short drive from where I live and I should get tickets and make the drive. Hilarious. Most guys I know like to have a few more drinks than is safe to drive before they view a game. I don’t take one of the busses to the game because I have kids and don’t want to be gone all day. I heard the Fire were offered the parking lot at Comiskey for $1 by the city to build a stadium and turned it down because Bridgeview offered them something the city didn’t. They could have been right off the 35th street el stop. Your average fan could get all liqoured up hop on the train and be at the game in no time. Yup, putting the stadium in suburbia stinks. The crowds would be way bigger if it was in the city.

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  4. dont get me wrong, i like Nyarko. He is always getting into good spots on the field and makes defenders nervous with that speed you just can’t teach, but his ability to get a cross in accurately (and at the right time) drives me nuts.

    for me, i’d rather see some more young americans make inroads into the lineup, and get the academy producing more top level talent and stick with ONE starting XI!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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  5. Backe seems to be doing OK. Not amazing, but OK considering where the team finished last year and where it’s at thus far this year. Key is having the GM and the coach on the same page so they are getting players that fit a system the coach wants to play. It seems unlikely given the results in Chicago that there was agreement on the players being signed.

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  6. KC hasn’t played at home yet either, so Vermes probably deserves the rest of the season to put up some results.

    Hamlet probably looks pretty good to Chicago right about now…

    Also, though break for TT in Vancouver. Not sure what they’re thinking up there.

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  7. Nyarko has been hurt, but when he is 100% I would argue that he is our best player (Pappa is right there.)

    I agree that Oduro and Puerari have been inconsistent but they are both on new teams which takes time to adjust and you can see the talent is there…they both can be VERY dangerous.

    Sean Johnson is young (22 today) and I’m sure it didn’t help his confidence that DLC benched him but he does already have a National team Cap under his belt and I only see him getting better. I would rather have Jon Busch back there but obviously that was ANOTHER mistake by DLC.

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  8. pappa has been good, but Nyarko non-existant. Puerari and Oduro are extremely inconsistent. chavez has been good, pause is what he is, but nothing special and Johnson still leaves a lot left to be desired. I would be much happier with Pickens or JB back there.

    hoepfully getting DLC out is a start. I want to see more from the young Colombian kid too, he seemed in and out of the game, but once he got going he looked like a bull up front!

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  9. For those ragging on Klopas, he only has a certain amount to spend. Heck, they team was really to fire CdlC last year but didn’t want to spend the money on a new coach.

    I’m sad that things didn’t work out for CdlC and the Fire. I hope Frank does well. I miss going to games with my sons. But there was no sense in spending money to watch them lose or barely eek out a tie.

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  10. This was the right move. At the time, when DLC was hired, I was actually excited about the move after the good job he did with the Salvadorean national team, where he totally over-achieved with that squad. However, the results haven’t been there and its time for a change.

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  11. Player development is what did DLC in. Not one player appeared to evolve despite showing promise early on. An interesting dichotomy was last Saturday. I counted Mancherster United completed thirty passes in a row. When I watched the Fire later, they completed three and few times five. Teams that cannot pass do not win. Why DLC failed to build fundamentals is beyond anyone’s guess. Osorio never devopled the young talent which led to his demise twice in MLS. Will Klopas work on fundamentals, we shall see.

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  12. I don’t know how people can say Chicago doesn’t have the talent. Pappa, Nyarko, Chavez, Puerari, Oduro, Pause, and Johnson to name a few.

    Our problem wasn’t our players it was our coach… Chicago Fire will start winning, just wait.

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  13. he brought in the players that he wanted last season. Martinez? Umanzor? Both from the last team he coached El Salvador. I’m sure you are thinking “who are those guys.” Yeah because they both sucked and were not even good enough to play in MLS.

    Things are looking up for Chicago.

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  14. HA.. Yeah I’m sure he has pretty high standards, what was his last job??.. Arsenal, ManU, Barca?? NO… it was El Salvador. The guy is an idiot and a terrible coach. He would change the line-up EVERY game and make subs constantly at half time. EVERY player that he brought in last season wasn’t even good enough to play in the MLS so maybe MLS standards are a little high for his talents.

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  15. American MLS players? This guy played in a bunch of foreigners that he brought to play his style. He just forgot to look for a central midfield playmaker…A problem for many MLS teams. You dont just let go of a Blanco or a GBS…

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  16. It seems to me that Klopas is throwing in all the cards by taking the interim post. Now we will see if the “I can do better,” thought process will prove successful for Klopas. If he does not succeed in the next couple weeks through delivering a win I do not see how the fire can justify keeping him on the staff. A team in a large market like Chicago should not be putting out the current product on the field, if Klopas can’t deliver hire Wyanlda.

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  17. All is know is that since Klopas took over, this team has continued to fall apart. The former head coach may have not been the best, but he took the team to two consecutive conf finals and got fired. Not only did Klopas fire a successful staff, but replaced him with someone that did not know the MLS, did not know the team, and did not respect the MLS. What a disaster. This guy should have been fired today along with coach. Now, the club is stuck with internationals that were brought in to play de los Cobos’ style. What a joke. For some reason, Klopas is treated like some soccer legend and he does not deserve it. My hunch is he will be fired after the season too and they will start all over. A good start would be to hire CJ Brown as an Asst on the next staff.

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  18. Blanco and McBride were supposed to be the last two players to complete a championship squad. That failed, just barely, but it failed. Blanco reportedly could not stand DH. For DH to have fought with Baky in the locker room was so unprofessional. And after having seen that locker room, there is not a lot of space there, it had to be such a tight proximity to the rest of the players. There had to be a “duck and cover” for who ever was close by them.
    Last year there were players that CDLC wanted, and there were players that Frank wanted, and the team is now better off without Martinez, Umanzor, Castillo, John (remember the delay in signing John?) Freddie would have been fine, if he wanted to stay state side.
    So here we are, with 2/3 a season left. Comparing to a single game, if there were 30 minutes gone and 60 minutes to go, I’d still have hope of winning. Let’s see what Frank can do as coach. I’m going to be optimistic.

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  19. Who is your Drug Dealer because they have the most amazing delusional drugs? He’s played damn nearly every player outta position. He put this current squad together. It’s all on him. Stop with the excuses. He sucked here just like the other clubs he coached. This has nothing to do with whether or not you’re a foreigner and everything to do with basic coaching 101.

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  20. How can you call yourself a fan and be done with them? True fans ride the ups and downs of their teams.

    I believe in the Fire. Legend or not, is Klopas part of the problem and not the solution? The Fire have actually been struggling since Klopas took over as GM.

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  21. Anibaba is a center back played out of position. Play him in his strongest position then we can judge if he is a bust. Klopas needs to go and the rest of the front office with him. It is his squad and a poor one at that. there is nothing surprising in the Fiire’s results.

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  22. Oh I don’t know maybe because he had a star studded team the best in MLS and didn’t win caca and tried to kill his all star defender ….and anyone who let’s pause take a pk in a championship game deserves to get fired.

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  23. Hamlet sucked as well he had better players and wasn’t saddled with an 80 yr ok McBride, fat a&$ Collin John, disinterested Conde, and no Rolfe and Hamlett also tried to kill Soumare so DLC didn’t had him either. De Los cobos tried to play a nice passing style. He soon found out American MLS players had very very limited technical ability and passing in MLS means 40 yard back passes to the goalie. This shows that foreigners don’t succeed because the try to play soccer and not this long ball hack everyone kill all the stars MLS hacks. klopas gave DLC an old Gibbs, a bust in Anibaba, a lost form Segares, and slower than Curtin Mikalic and a dmid who neither intimidated or can make a forward pass in Pause. Getting more and more fed up with the MLS/NFL minor league hybrid game here.

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  24. This day will forever be known as the “Memorial Day Massacre”. I believe one or two firings are still to come. NY should fire Backe just for the hell of it, and so they can make a splash by bringing over Ancelloti, who then can be fired on the sideline of a game a month in. Almost makes we wish I could fire someone, or be fired, but as i happen to be unemployed I guess I’ll have to miss out.

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  25. good by and good riddance,,,,,whay dumbass fires hamlett after a conference champioship game maybe fire him to….KLOPAS

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  26. Two coaches in one day–amazing! He’s had a season and a half, he inherited some talent–he’s had a fair shake and failed.

    Here’s another interesting point: guys like Vermes, Klopas and Soehn (who helped create their team’s rosters) are probably guilty of over-valuing the “quality” of the signings, were probably in favor of canning the coach (arguing “look how good our players are and he’s not getting performance out of them!”). So if these guys did as good of a job as they thought, then they should be able to improve upon the work that Onalfo did in KC in 2009 as well as the previous coaches for Chicago and Vancouver. It will be interesting to see how this plays out–if any of these sides show a turnaround (obviously, KC has not).

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  27. Total overhaul please…Klopas hasn’t been the best of general managers either. I hear Richie Williams is free…

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  28. I am convinced the Fire were trying to win games with smoke and mirrors. They did not have enough talent to compete with the rest of the league. I think it has been alluded by others that De Los Cobos did not have the type of player to execute the system of play that he desired. I am in total agreement with that assesment. The Fire management believe that this move will show the fans they are at least trying to improve but im not even sure Sir Alex could win with this squad.

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  29. Good job saying “fired” Ives instead of “sacked”

    That’s keeping the “American Voice”

    Kudos to you and down with stupid English phrases like “sacked”

    America, !@#$ yeah!!

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  30. Hunh!!!! What team have you been watching this season. Team is HORRIBLE!!! Should have been done a long time ago. Best soccer news I’ve heard all day in Chicago. AMEN!!!

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  31. De Los Cobos never seemed happy to be there. In an interview with the spanish version of the Disney sports network in spanish, he trashed the quality the players and the league as a whole. He said nothing was being done to improve the league by FO’s and he was being censored because he initially spoke out about the poor quality. It sounded as though he was not happy to be a coach in this league because it was not up to his standards.

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  32. Its unfortunate for DLC. The team is not horrible, but it seemed like there was always something going wrong that lead to the Fire going down early. I’m not sure if it is players not being good enough or something to do with the team as a whole not doing good team defending.

    Either way, a bunch of draws and losses is not gonna get it done. Please Klopas don’t kill the attack by long balls and run.

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  33. chicago is basically a USL team on paper. No one is going to turn that ship around b/c they dont have the players. Klopas should also be canned for not reinforcing the roster

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  34. See, I was never sure if the problem was the coach or the fact that we don’t have the caliber of players to execute his plan. Is the smart idea to put the GM who hired the players in the coaching position? Discuss. 😉

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