Jack McCarthy has a short preview of this year's Chicago Fire in the Tribune. It continues to flog this horribly mistaken notion that the problem last year was the short passing game (it wasn't -- it was finishing scoring chances), but that's not what this is about. What I find curious is that it includes a projected starting lineup. I don't know if McCarthy is getting his information from the team, or if he's guessing based on attending training sessions, or what, but several things jump out at me.
- First, I was told on Wednesday that John Thorrington picked up an injury and will miss the first three or four weeks of the season. As of right now, the Fire's website has no injuries listed, and there's no game preview guide anywhere, but if this lineup is coming from training camp visits, one would think it would be obvious.
- If you saw the writing on the wall for Jon Busch losing his job to Andrew Dykstra because Dykstra started the last two pre-season matches, then you might then also conclude that the starting pairing in the central midfield won't include Logan Pause, either. Peter Lowry and Baggio Husidic started both of those matches. I do have a source on this, but while well-informed on the pre-season, might still just be an opinion. I could have asked Pause himself, but that's sort of awkward to bring up at a team event like the Season Kickoff Luncheon.
- Steven Kinney? It's not out of the question that he's beaten out Tim Ward at right back, but if so, this "youth over experience" thing is officially starting to worry me. The Fire suffered greatly when Ward was out with injury, and would have missed him even more if he could cross the ball. I reserve the right to be impressed with Kinney once I see him on the field, though.
- I'm not sure if these are the "all things being equal" starters -- which might explain Thorrington's inclusion -- or what McCarthy expects on Saturday, but unless I know Collins John is back stateside after returning to the Netherlands to sort out his visa, I put him down as a question mark. Or at least mention that he was gone. He may very well be back, but I don't trust the visa-granting process enough to expect it to go smoothly.
UPDATE: Jimmy Olsen's lineup prediction is even weirder, but given comments earlier in the week about how C.J. Brown might not get the captain's armband, there might be something there. Plus, he talks to the front office a lot, so he might be doing the "I'm going to frame this as a wild-ass guess when I really have inside information from a confidential source" trick that I'm guessing he learned from his short tenure with Ives.