With 1-0 loss, Chicago Fire setting new lows

Chris Rolfe's return to Toyota Park on Wednesday night, even as he sat on the bench, stirred memories of the days when the Chicago Fire was a winning soccer club.

Rolfe is one of the few remaining active players in MLS to have won a playoff game in a Fire uniform. His return was a stark reminder that the good old days ended with the 2009 Eastern Conference championship match.

The Losing Era in Chicago Fire history began in 2010, and it has included just one playoff game, a dreary 2012 defeat to Houston. The current team is 4-9-2 after Wednesday's 1-0 loss to Rolfe's D.C. United squad at Toyota Park. The Fire is the worst club in MLS this season, rapidly falling out of any reasonable hope for a playoff return. It has lost its last four MLS games.

So why can't this club succeed anymore?

"I don't know. We're putting all of our efforts into it," said Fire coach and director of soccer Frank Yallop, who has won elsewhere in MLS. "I think maybe having a few guys out (David Accam, Matt Polster, Shaun Maloney) at a time when we need them most hurts a little bit. But maybe if it's meant to be it's meant to be. I don't know.

"We've added some really talented players. Again I'll go back to the work ethic. Maybe it wasn't there in some of the games where we kind of let our foot off the gas in this season. I don't know. We should be good enough to win games."

The Fire's 14 standings points in its first 15 matches set a new low for a club that has made a habit the past few years of setting new lows. Of the next three worst seasons -- in 2014 (Yallop's first season), 2011 and 2007 -- two resulted in midseason coaching changes. This one might still, not that a coaching change should be expected to change the club's fortunes.

This is a club in need of a serious makeover -- the Don Garber kind, not the Meredith Vieira variety. But if the MLS commissioner believes the Chicago franchise's failings are hurting the league, he hasn't made it public.

Rolfe didn't play Wednesday. United won anyway on a Conor Doyle 27-yard strike in the 73rd minute.

Rolfe, though, is thriving in Washington. He has 6 goals this season. That's more goals than anyone on the Fire's roster. And his team leads the league at 10-5-4, 34 points.

It takes a former Fire player to enjoy good times these days. Chad Barrett and Marco Pappa return with Western Conference-leading Seattle on July 11 to provide another reminder of that.

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