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Is Gregg Berhalter the right fit as new coach and director of football for the Chicago Fire? | The Cooligans

Yahoo Sports contributors Christian Polanco and contributor David Gass react to the Chicago Fire hiring Gregg Berhalter as their new head coach and director of football and question whether or not he’s the right fit for both jobs. Hear the full conversation on the “The Cooligans” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Greg Berhalter joining the Chicago fire as head coach and sporting director.

I think I have the recency bias of the failure at Copa America.

And I'm just like, oh man, is he bringing those negative vibes or is this a resurgence?

And then the sporting director part?

Then I get a little bit like, all right, are we going to have another like for me situation where you can have a bad season?

But hey, who's the guy who's gonna fire me?

And then he's just looking at the mirror like, I guess nobody.

So, uh what, what are your initial thoughts when you heard the news?

It is a clean fit.

Chicago fire have a history, one of the genuine relevant market in major league soccer in the early two thousands before Beckham and all those things, they were getting 20 25,000 fans at Chicago Fire games consistently under Bob Bradley, they were winning trophies and then the club moved to Bridgeview, they stopped spending money.

The league changed and they fell through the floor.

And so when you look at a club like that and now new ownership that has spent money but poorly, you just need the right guiding hand.

And the history is Bob Bradley and Bruce Arena.

The two US men's national team coaches who have come back to major league soccer after being men's national team coaches Bruce Arena built the Galaxy with Beckham and Keane after that and Bob built L AFC.

After that, the history there is pretty good.

It's a little bit like when pro comes back to coach college, like he Greg Balter has been in some situations that not every MLS manager will have that experience, those connections, those experiences, but he's also been around MLS.

I think most of it's a home run.

I can understand the hesitancy of having him have both jobs.

This is the Chicago Fire's fault.

The, they have a sporting director who is leaving at the end of the year, but instead of hiring someone new who could then hire Greg Berhalter, they've had him stay through the end of the year and now you're in a time crunch where if Greg's the guy you want, you have to hire him and if you're gonna hire him, it's really hard to hire his boss after you hired him.

And that's often what you see with clubs is sporting directors don't want to inherit coaches, they want to hire their own coaches.

So if you're hiring Greg cause the time crunch is there, he's the right guy and I believe he is, then you kind of got stuck in a spot where you have to put him in both roles.

Now, the key for success is how you set up the organization, like who does, who is his number two in the front office?

Who's his number two in the coaching staff?