Easing McBride Towards The Fire

• ESPN Soccernet, Tuesday, June 3, 2008 2:30 PM

Chicago Fire officials should have spent the team's free weekend "holed up in some smoke-filled back room" figuring out the best way to secure the signature of Brian McBride. That's the view of Steve Davis, who says the Fire has "a big, fat golden opportunity" to make themselves the hottest team in Major League Soccer.
 
"In the mishmash jumble of MLS," he writes, "where teams fall in and out of form with wild unpredictability, clear favorites are as rare as compliments for referees." But Chicago "becomes the team to beat the instant McBride is standing at a news conference podium, mugging merrily with Fire suits as he lifts the new red jersey."
 
Davis says the McBride family has made it clear that it's "Chicago or nothing," and that both the team and the league should move sooner rather than later to strike a deal with Toronto FC, which owns the player's allocation rights. Landon Donovan's trade to LA and Freddy Adu's draft pick by D.C. United set the precedent for MLS to lean on Toronto and hurry the move along. For the Fire, McBride would be the finishing touch to a team that's "got it going on. Add McBride and it gets that much better."

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