For nearly four months, the Chicago Fire have sputtered and streaked, oscillating between “unbeatable” and “shambolic”. It is now nearly July, and a slow start and inconsistent performances have left them with the worst record in Major League Soccer. This is familiar territory for Fire fans, who have seen their club perform variations of this theme year after year. Recently, ownership has addressed the problem of poor starts by firing head coaches mid-season, so it’s no surprise that some Fire supporters are already asking for Frank Yallop to hit the road.
Chicago had just two head coaches, Bob Bradley and Dave Sarachan, for their first nine and a half years of existence (1998-2007). In the eight years since 2007, the team has employed five different head coaches – six if you count Sarachan, who began that year in charge. Juan Carlos Osorio, Denis Hamlett, Carlos de los Cobos, Frank Klopas, and Frank Yallop have all served the club with no trophies to show for their efforts.
This is a three part series which attempts to measure Frank Yallop against his predecessors. In this first installment, the Fire’s seven head coaches are evaluated using statistics- specifically winning percentage, points per season, points per game, and goal differential. So without further ado, let’s take a look. (All Yallop stats are current as of June 26, 2015.)
Chicago Fire Coach Comparison Part 1: Numbers Don’t Lie
Fire Coaches ranked by Winning Percentage in all competitions: (All records are listed W-L-T)
Bob Bradley: 55.8% (110-67-20)
Dave Sarachan: 45.4% (75-57-33)
Frank Klopas: 44.5% (45-33-23)
Denis Hamlett: 39.7% (31-23-24)
Juan Carlos Osorio: 36% (7-5-7)
Frank Yallop: 26% (14-20-20) as of 6/26/15
Carlos De Los Cobos: 25.5% (12-18-17)
The most surprising take away from this statistic is that Frank Klopas is the third most successful coach in the history of the Fire when measured only by winning percentage. Yallop’s record is miserable but it’s actually significantly helped by a 4-1 record in U.S Open Cup play. De los Cobos will be near the bottom of all these rankings and Bob Bradley will easily be on top.
Fire coaches ranked by average Points per Season (PPS) and Points per game (PPG): For the PPS stat, only completed seasons for each coach were used. For the PPG stat, all regular season games were used.
Bob Bradley: 50.2 PPS 1.66 PPG
Frank Klopas: 46.6 PPS, 1.53 PPG
Denis Hamlett: 45.5 PPS, 1.47 PPG
Dave Sarachan: 45.5 PPS, 1.44 PPG
Carlos De Los Cobos: 39 PPS, 1.09 PPG
Frank Yallop: 36 PPS, 1.02 PPG
Osorio is not listed because he only coached for 15 games before resigning. His PPG was 1.6 in that time. Yallop is bringing up the rear in this statistic, which is not a good sign. To make the playoffs in MLS, a team usually needs between 45 and 50 points. To safely qualify, 50 points should be the goal for any team. Averaging one point per game in any league is a recipe for disaster. It’s worth mentioning that Klopas looks good when measured by this metric as well. Also worth mentioning: Dave Sarachan won the Supporters’ Shield in 2003, and then had a 33 point season in 2004, which is the Fire’s worst points total ever. He followed it up with 49 and 47 point campaigns. Last season’s 36 point total is the second worst in Fire history.
Fire Coaches ranked by Goal Differential (all competitions):
Bob Bradley: +107
Denis Hamlett: +21
Dave Sarachan: +20
Frank Klopas: +12
Juan Carlos Osorio: + 3
Carlos de los Cobos: -7
Frank Yallop: -16
This stat is the most worrisome, with Yallop once again dead last. His Fire teams have hemorrhaged goals. 2014’s expensive defensive rebuild gone wrong really hurt Yallop here. This year’s team hasn’t done any better with Adailton and Jeff Larentowicz at center back. Being mentioned in the same breath as Carlos de los Cobos is not what you want if you are coaching in Bridgeview.
So what do these statistics tell us? For one, Bob Bradley is a legend in Chicago for good reason. Longtime Fire fans do not need to be told this, but for the younger generation, these numbers may help illustrate the dominance his teams had in MLS. Simply put, the “good old days” for the men in red were absolutely sublime.
The numbers also tell us that Frank Klopas was more successful than many give him credit for. His defense-first tactics left much to be desired, but his teams were often able to grind out results, as his high win percentage and narrow +12 goal differential show. Yallop’s teams have not been able to squeeze results out of tough games and they have been punished dearly for it.
Frank Yallop looks just as bad as Carlos de los Cobos by these measurements, but the Mexican was fired after starting his second season 1-4-6, a record slightly harder to defend than Yallop’s 4-9-2 start. Yallop has also had success in the past with LA and San Jose, while de los Cobos has never lasted more than three years at any of his ten coaching gigs.
Younger Fire fans may also wonder why Denis Hamlett or Dave Sarachan were ever fired. That story will be told in the second installment of the series- where Fire coaches will be compared by their performance in playoffs and cup competitions.
Photo by Jonathan Daniel/MLS/Getty Images
