Tuesday night brought the first major event of 2019 for the Chicago Fire as the team hosted a kit launch and Motorola branding event at Fire on the Mile in the Wrigley Building. It was also the first media availability of ’19, and with that we saw the most prominent figures in the club take questions from reporters about how the offseason has gone thus far.
The Fire have made two major acquisitions thus far: Przemyslaw Frankowski, a midfielder and Polish international from
Gdansk, who last played for Jagiellonia Bialystok and central defender Marcelo dos Santos Ferreira, commonly referred to as Marcelo, who arrived via transfer from Portuguese first-division club Sporting CP.
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Here’s what some of the most prominent players, as well as the head coach and general manager, had to say about the new players and off-season in general.
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Chicago Fire Midfielder and Team Captain Dax McCarty
“They’re exciting. Honestly, you guys probably know more than I do about Marcelo and the new Polish guy Frankowski, but I hear really good things.”
“I’m a little bit neurotic when it comes to this stuff, so I’m always asking our coaching staff about player reports and opinions, and everything I hear from our coaching staff is extremely positive about specifically Marcelo and specifically Frankowksi, two guys that are going to provide us with quality and I think that’s we needed.”
“You guys know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter if you won MLS Cup or you’re not very good the past year, you need to refresh the roster. You always need to be bringing in competition for places.”
Chicago Fire GM Nelson Rodriguez
On Frankowski: “a player that we actually first made an offer to last February, it’s been a long time. He is a player that will represent our city and our club in the very best ways. Besides having talent, he grinds, he has an incredible work rate and an incredible desire to get behind the defender, and he’s very good in transition both ways.”
On academy product Jeremiah Gutjahr: “multifunctional, solid not flashy, just very dependable, if I were trying to give a comparison, and I’m not trying to set a comparison for his career, but he reminds me a lot of Logan Pause, very steady, very intelligent, very versatile.”
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Rodriguez said he would also like to see more competition for the goalkeeping position and add another another attacking player, whether it would be out wide or more central. However, the most important priority is to upgrade at centre back.
“We’re still negotiating with Johan (Kappelhof) in the hopes that he’ll return,” Fire General Manager Nelson Rodriguez said at the team’s kit launch/Motorola branding event last night.
“We’re in advanced to deep negotiations with two foreign center backs. Both require transfers, so there’s the added complexity of trying to reach agreement between the club and the player. Both are far from finished, but we have contingencies against those two as well.”
“We would like to close all three, but certainly two out of the three would help us quite a bit.”
Chicago Fire Coach Velko Paunovic
On new signings: “we believe already with them we have a better team than last year, and we can’t wait to start working together.”
On if we will see more additions this offseason: “it could be, we didn’t complete our roster yet, if you look at our team, we still lack depth in defense and that’s something we’re trying to improve.”
Chicago Fire Leading scorer and forward Nemanja Nikolic
“From the last season we needed to bring some quality players in our squad, to make good spirit in the dressing room also, and for that we needed players who are playing at a high level, so we are happy about the players that are coming
On having faced Frankowski when both were in the Polish league:
“We played against each other, I don’t know him personally.”
“I think he will bring us the things that we needed. He’s a hard worker, he can play both ways, defensively and offensively.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.