Attractive, Attacking Soccer Claims It's First Victim?

It's been a couple of hours since the news broke that the Fire waived veteran goalkeeper Jon Busch. Jimmy Olsen has the timeline of what went down -- according to Busch himself, who was "blindsided" by the decision. He also offers some speculation as to why the team would cast its lot with two 'keepers with zero minutes of MLS action between them.

None of them are terribly satisfying. Busch debunks my initial theory that he might not have gelled with the new goalkeeping coach, and saving $135K in salary isn't going to make the team suddenly profitable.

Which leads me to what I think is going on here. It's not that the team is saving the money -- it's that the team needs that money, and more importantly, that roster sport -- for someone else. A few weeks ago, it was reported that Carlos de los Cobos wasn't thrilled with Kryzsztof Krol, the squad's new Polish left back, and had brought in a 30-year old Salvadoran name Deris Umanzor to train with the team. I think this may have been about the same time that Daniel Woolard -- nominally Krol's backup -- was released.

My guess is that we'll hear tomorrow that Umanzor has signed with the team. So we're losing our number one goalkeeper because our new left back didn't get forward enough. Which will then make Krol dead weight, and I'm really curious to see if passing over a promising Polish player elicits the same reaction for de los Cobos that Denis Hamlett got when Tomasz Frankowski didn't get enough playing time to satisfy some Euro-centric fans.

As for the defense, I'm now officially worried. Mostly because I don't know anything about Andrew Dykstra. Busch and C.J. Brown were clearly going to be the guys leading the backline, and if Dykstra isn't as commanding of his box, we're going to have problems. Especially if Umanzor is caught upfield playing attractive, attacking soccer.