The Chicago Fire are already looking ahead to 2015 and on Tuesday they revealed some of the players who will be returning to help the club in its quest to get back to the MLS postseason.
The Fire announced they declined the contract options on 11 players (Marco Franco, Patrick Ianni, Hunter Jumper, Steven Kinney, Gonzalo Segares, Bakary Soumare, Alex, Sanna Nyassi, Robert Earnshaw, Matt Fondy and Florent Sinama-Pongolle), whlie picking up the options on six others (Alec Kann, Kyle Reynish, Greg Cochrane, Chris Ritter, Matt Watson and Quincy Amarikwa).
“I believe that we have a good, solid core of returning players for us to build upon as we continue to prepare for the 2015 season,” Fire head coach Frank Yallop said in a club statement. “We’re currently working towards new deals for several players who are out of contract or whose options have been declined and look to finalize those in the coming weeks.”
League rules state that the "team retains the right of first refusal to the player indefinitely only if attempts were made to re-sign the player." Players whose options are declined may be eligible for the Re-Entry Draft in December (read the rules here).
One player who is definitely coming back in 2015 is Chicago Fire winger Patrick Nyarko, who re-signed with the club which originally drafted him 7th overall in the 2008 SuperDraft. Nyarko is recovering from surgery on his right knee to repair a torn ACL.
Nyarko joins seven other players who were already under contract for the 2015 season, inlcuding goalkeeper Sean Johnson, defenders Jeff Larentowicz and Lovel Palmer, midfielders Razvan Cocis and Harry Shipp and forwards Juan Luis Anangono and Mike Magee.
The Fire also revealed that Homegrown midfielder Victor Pineda is out of contract and that loan deals for US youth international Benji Joya and Tottenham loanee Grant Ward have expired.
