We May Have Lost The Game

...but I guarantee you that the Blue team had a higher net worth than the Red team in today's third annual Chicago Fire media scrimmage.

That's right, in the space of about a week and a half, Andrew Hauptman of Andell Holdings has made more public appearances than Phil Anschutz did in the entire ten years (I'm rounding up) he owned the team.

One think I have to note is that he seems to be left-footed. So now the "leftorium" runs all the way up the chain of command, which is getting totally ridiculous. And he's not a bad player, even if he did miss me on an overlapping run. I let it slide.

As for the rest of the game, I can confirm that Blanco did referee the first half, much to the amusement of the coaching staff. Juan Carlos Osorio earned a yellow card at one point, and I learned that "arbitro" is the Spanish word for "referee." I can also confirm that Luis Arroyave tried Blanco's bunny hop move, with not so successful results. Expect him to be wallowing in self-pity over his performance sometime soon, although I didn't think he did so bad. In a game like this, all you really need to do is not trip over your own shoelaces to acquit yourself. If you're measuring yourself up against Frankie Klopas -- and he claimed he "wasn't going to run" this time -- you're doomed from the get-go. Use, say, Chris Bailey in Fire Media Relations as your yardstick, or your humble correspondent, and you'll feel somewhat better about yourself.

At one point, I barked at someone -- it may have been Todd over at Chicagoist -- to play the ball up the line, while Osorio wanted him to go to the middle. So I asked no one particular, "who are you going to listen to, the coach of the team or some guy with a website?"

Anyway, expect more blog reporting on this at Chicagoist, the Red Card and maybe Gapers Block, although Steve may have just been playing to play and not to report. I don't think Tom from the Offside blog made it out, or at least I didn't meet him if he did.