When will Blanco arrive? Will he save Dave Sarachan from having his head placed on a stick – a scientific study.

By: Tom | May 21st, 2007

Blanco with Fire shirt This weekend, Mexico coach Hugo Sanchez announced his ‘preliminary’ squads for the Gold Cup and Copa America tournaments. Blanco is, unsurprisingly, in the squad. Everyone seems to be expecting him to play in the Gold Cup. Indeed, it all works out rather ingeniously – the semi-final and final of this tournament are handily in Chicago at the end of June. So presuming Mexico make it that far, Blanco can settle into Chicago, receive some kind of insane welcome if Mexico plays the U.S. in the final at Soldier Field on June 24, and then have a couple of weeks break before turning out for the Fire in early July.

But that squad is also for the Copa America. This tournament begins June 26th, just two days after the Gold Cup final and runs until July 15th. One would presume that Mexico – like the U.S. – plans to spread the wealth and demands by having few players participate in both tournaments. But what if he doesn’t, and Blanco plays in both? Or what if he picks Blanco for the Copa America (a higher profile international tournament) and not the Gold Cup? That would delay Blanco’s arrival until late July. The Fire have sold a lot of ticket packages based on Blanco, and having him miss most the season is not going to go down well.

There is nothing the Fire can do technically to stop this. I suspect that in their discussions with Blanco, they may have pointed out that it would be better for all concerned if he played in the Gold Cup and not Copa America. He clearly has the personality and sway to assert this wish with Sanchez, who has been much more accommodating to Blanco than Mexico’s previous coach Ricardo La Volpa, who fell out with Temo and did not take him to the World Cup.

Incidentally, as the Dave Sarachan hot seat has reached frizzling point following the Fire’s latest loss last week, I’ve been testing Peter Wilt’s theory that it’s unfair to judge the Fire’s record without Blanco. Unfortunately, according to my Fire record on the X-Box game FIFA 2007, his addition to the team results in a season considerably worse than the present real life tally. Though this could be because I’m not very good. Blanco is the highest-rated player on the team; on the other hand, he falls over a lot. More details on this scientific study to come.