Fire’s Blanco plays by his own rule
They called it the David Beckham rule, but they should have waited to name it until all the votes were in.
No Major League Soccer player has had a greater overall impact on his team and on the league this season than Cuauhtemoc Blanco, the Chicago Fire’s mercurial Mexican midfielder.
Certainly, the Galaxy’s Beckham has sold more jerseys and, yes, the New York Red Bulls’ Juan Pablo Angel has scored more goals, but of the five so-called “designated players” in MLS, Blanco has stood head and shoulders above the rest in 2007.
The 34-year-old former Club America star from Mexico City has scored goals, created goals, sold out stadiums and sparked wider interest in the league -- exactly what MLS was looking for -- and the Fire has advanced to the Eastern Conference finals.
When MLS owners last year adopted a provision that allowed each team to acquire one “name” player, only a portion of whose paycheck would count against the salary cap, it was dubbed the “Beckham rule” because that allowed AEG, the Galaxy’s owner, to sign the English midfielder.
But the Mexican midfielder turns out to have been the better buy, at least in the short term.
Blanco’s four goals and seven assists in 14 regular-season games powered Chicago into the MLS playoffs -- Beckham and the Galaxy didn’t make it -- and attendance jumped significantly after the man they call Temo joined the Fire in July.
All of which has left John Guppy, the Fire’s president, trying hard not to seem smug. It was Guppy who decided that Chicago would take advantage of the designated player rule -- nine MLS teams have temporarily opted not to do so -- and it was Guppy who pursued Blanco.
“Ideally what you want to try to find in a DP is first and foremost a very talented player,” Guppy said. “In my opinion, it needs to be an offensive player. If it’s about playing good, entertaining soccer, then I think you need creative players to bring those qualities.
“Beyond that, you look at the demographics of Chicago and we’re not ignorant of the fact that there are 1.5 million Mexicans here, and that’s an audience that we can connect with.”
By signing Blanco to a three-year contract with a salary of $2.7 million -- second only to Beckham’s $6.5 million -- the Fire did exactly that.
“We’ve certainly seen an increased interest in the team from the Mexican community, but more important than that, we’ve seen an increased interest in the team in general,” Guppy said. With Blanco on board, Chicago’s average attendance jumped 61% from 10,217 in 2006 to 16,490 in 2007.
Like Beckham, Blanco also drew fans on the road. “In Salt Lake, I’d say we had more than half the crowd cheering for us,” Guppy said. “Same thing in Dallas, same thing in Kansas City. Same in Los Angeles.”
New York, the only MLS team with the maximum-allowed two designated players after trading for Chivas USA’s spot, has benefited from a stellar season by Colombian forward Angel, whose 19 goals and five assists made him the league’s second-leading goal scorer behind D.C. United’s Luciano Emilio.
Blanco has long been known for his hot temper and on-field tantrums, but coming to MLS appears to have reinvigorated his game.
“I have adapted really quickly to this league,” he said. “I thought it would be an easy league to play in, but it’s not. It’s a very difficult league. They don’t really give it that much importance in Mexico, but they should. It’s a very tough league.”
Guppy said Blanco is thriving in MLS.
“He’s deceptively quick,” he said. “He still has that change of pace. He uses it wisely. . . . He’s just a very smart player in terms of his reading of the game, his touch, his positioning. Those are the qualities that make him the player that he is.”
Blanco is happy just being himself. It doesn’t matter to him what Beckham or anyone else does or says. “I just came here to work,” he said. “I’m not concerned with Beckham. I’m just doing my job.”
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