two retirements

This week the Chicago Fire had an official retirement announcement and an unofficial announcement. And although forward Paoloa Wanchope has had a far bigger name world wide, it's midfielder Chris Armas' retirement that will hamper the Fire seriously next year.

First the good news. The two retirements will save the fire $500,000 in annual salaries split between the two. Since the MLS is a league that has a pretty serious salary cap*, this will allow the Fire to pay their own players more- goalie "Slim" Pickens is up for a renewal- and search for other players. A half mil will help.

Now the bad news. Chris Armas has been the outstanding midfielder for the Fire's first ten years. Again, there have been greater names in the Fire's midfield- Peter Novak as the teams original captain and Hristo Stoichkov is simply one the of the greatest players in the games history- but Armas has been special for the teams entire history.

The quintessential 'holding' midfielder whose job it was to be a nuisance to the other teams attackers, Armas was always in the other teams players faces, harrassing, slowing, and winning the ball. One of my favourite sights always was Armas winning the ball from the other players, then his quick 1-2-3 dribbles to find the half centimeter of open space, then him dishing it off to an open teamate who could get it out of danger. Complete hustle, and a good guy.

A deep shame about Armas career is that he never played for the US in the world cup. On the eve of the last two World Cup Armas was the regular holding mid on the team, and one of it's key players. Just before both World Cups Armas was seriouslt injured. He came back fit both times, but what a terrible blow both to himand the us teams chances. One wonders how much better they would have been in 2002- maybe to the semis or even the final- and if they would have played so poor last Cup. We'll never know.

Wanchope is retiring after a third of a season with the Fire. He came with great promise, but it seems his best days are behind him and he doesn't want to try to regain them. A big and fast defender who played in Europe for years and is best known here for his two World Cup goals -v-Germany. However, he never seemed to get into the flow of the team. Every game, despite two goals scored, he just didn't seem with it.

Wanchope had talked about starting the next season from spring training to regain his from. Maybe it would have worked, but my guess is is that his retirement will not hurt the Fire too much. What they need is a striker who can put the ball away. I'm sorry, but Chad Barret still is not a terrible danfger to other teams back lines. The Fire's acquisition of C. Blanco and William Cinde were fantastic. With the half mill saved from the dual retirements this week, I hope the Fire will get a great scorer. And that Chris Armas comes back from retirement.

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*= There is one salary cap out. The "David Beckham rule" allows each team to make one salary exemption. This came in this year specifically to acquire Bexx.