Head Coaches of Chicago Fire and Vancouver Whitecaps Dismissed

While not very surprising, but somewhat un-expected, the head coaches of both the Chicago Fire (Carlos De Los Cobos) and the Vancouver Whitecaps (Teitur Thordarson) have been fired.Both teams have found themselves unsuccessful in getting a favorable result since the beginning of the season. Vancouver started the season off with a bang, topping Toronto FC 4-2 in the season opener. Unfortunately since then they have been on a winless streak, only grabbing nine points out of the first twelve games of the season. The very same could be said of the Chicago Fire, who started the season off reasonably well with a tie against FC Dallas, followed up by a win against also struggling Sporting Kansas City. Since that win on March 26th they have only found themselves winless.

What is really surprising here is the firing of Thordarson. It only serves to perpetuate the negative stereotype against teams in the MLS and lack of patience with head coaches to settle in and produce results. Case in point Toronto FC has been through about three head coaches in their fairly short five year existence, and more than likely as a result they have never been able to lift themselves out of the basement of the standings in the eastern conference. At the start of the season the Whitecaps showed a lot of promise, and I don't want to watch them fall into a similar cycle of mediocrity as Toronto. Frustration of Thordarson being dismissed only gets added with the fact of his succes with the team when they in the USL second division, bringing in a title in the 2008 season and reaching the final once again in the 2009 season. The real issue here is that aforementioned lack of patience. One key thing that needs to be remembered is that Vancouver is an expansion team. Certainly the Sounders have set the bar and fellow rivals the Portland Timbers are following in their example, but at this point in the clubs existence in the MLS (not even halfway into their first season no less) there simply should not be as big a concern as they clearly have over Thordarson and his ability to coach.