Q and A with Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas

By: irish_steve | February 8th, 2009

Everyone’s least favorite time of year, the offseason, just got a whole lot more interesting. At their recent holiday party Chicago Fire fans were treated to a Q and A with Chicago Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas. Frank was very open and answered every fans question with much detail and honesty. Frank answered questions on a wide range of topics including transfer targets, the statuses of rumored Fire players such as Wilman Conde, Marco Pappa, and Bakay Soumare. Frank started by thanking Section 8 for all they do to help the Fire on the field. He used the example of the protest game last season to show how much the singing means to the players. He called the first half of that game a “disaster” and asked that we not protest again because of its negative effect on the team.

The subject of Wilman Condes impending departure from the club was asked by a fan and Klopas’s response was very direct. He wants players at the club who are committed to the Chicago Fire. If any player indicates that they are not 100% committed to the Chicago Fire then the Chicago Fire don’t want that player on the team. Klopas stressed that Conde is under contract and he has not received any phone calls from other clubs regarding a transfer. Klopas says he fully expects Conde to be back in Chicago for preseason training when that starts soon. When asked about the futures of Marco Pappa and Bakay Soumare, Klopas answerers were short and to the point: both Pappa and Soumare will be playing for the Chicago Fire next season, end of discussion. A fan also asked why did we resign Justin Mapp. Klopas said that was an easy answer: Mapp was out of contract at the end of the season and the Fire did not want to let him go to another club for nothing.

After losing Andy Herron and Tomasz Frankowski this offseason signing an international striker is a strong possibility for the Fire. Klopas revealed that after some 6-7 months of hard work he would be bringing in around 6 international players 2 from Croatia, 2 from Cameroon and 2 from Brazil. Klopas stated that all of the players are very talented and some of them have represented their respective countries at various age levels. Klopas would not go as far as to name the 6 players but he did tell Fire fans that one of the players recently played in the Olympics held last summer in Beijing. This news will delight Fire fans who are hungry to sign more international players. In recent years the Fire have brought in a host of international players with few successes. Successful signings like Blanco and Marco Pappa have been overshadowed by the long list of failed signings in recent years including Frankowski, Lubos Reiter, Pascal Bedrossian, Paulo Wanchope, Bruno Menezes, Osei Telesford ect.

Klopas expressed his disappointment at the decision by the MLS to cancel the reserve league. He said the lack of a reserve league would make it hard for the 3 or so college players that the Fire selects to make an impact of the team because there will be so many players already on the roster with MLS experience. Klopas said the Fire would have no problems organizing games for reserve players because there are many amateur clubs in the area but some teams in the MLS like Real Salt Lake do not have the luxury of living in a large city and those clubs will struggle to find games for their reserves to play. The session was wrapped up with a comical question by Section 8 chairman Ben Burton who asked Klopas about the match day atmosphere in Section 8. Klopas delighted the fans when he told them he loved the atmosphere that the fans in Section 8 create. He said that the smoke bombs and flares remained him of when he played in Europe. If the Fire fans learned anything from Frank Klopas last night it was that the man is extremely dedicated to the Chicago Fire and he is working extremely hard to bring the best players possible to the club.