Are The Chicago Fire Better Without Cuauhtemoc Blanco?

That was a really hard title to write. I am a big supporter of the Chicago Fire and also of Cuauhtemoc Blanco. I think he was one of the best things to happen to MLS and has done wonders for the league.

But this last week Blanco was out of action for the first time in his MLS career—suspended for one game due to yellow card accumulation—and the Fire looked like an entirely different team.

I am still trying to figure out if this team was better or just so different that it caught me off guard.

When Blanco is on the field, the entire game flows through him in midfield and the offensive players are reliant on him for service and support. These are usually good things because Blanco is an incredibly skilled player and probably has the best vision of any player in the league.

The drawback is that Blanco—at 35 years of age—is starting to slow and cannot get back and defend like most midfielders. This means that players like Chris Rolfe and Justin Mapp are forced to spend much of their time racing back to defend and fill in the holes created by Blanco's free moving style.

During the Fire's 1-0 victory over Chivas USA this past weekend, Chicago used a few new-comers to offset the absence of Mr. White.

Guatemalan midfielder Marco Pappa played in his first MLS match and looked impressive as the main playmaker in the center of the pitch. Sure the 20-year-old was not perfect, but his energy and speed on the ball was very good to see from a young player in a new league.

Another pleasant surprise was the coming out party of Patrick Nyarko. The seventh pick in this years Superdraft showed why he had been so highly rated going into the draft when he scored his first career MLS goal—and he could have had two if not for the ref incorrectly calling him offside on the first.

The rookie did not join the team until recently after deciding to stay at Virginia Tech until his graduation earlier this spring. He showed great speed and a knack for putting the ball in the back of the net—a trait that we have not seen much of this season.

The most shocking thing about this game was the speed at which it was played. With Pappa lining up in the midfield with John Thorrington, Mapp, and defensive midfielder Logan Pause, the Fire looked to move much quicker than in any other game this season.

Nyarko—paired up top with Rolfe—added to the overall team speed of Chicago and this was the difference in the game.

All season Chicago has been a team that will grind you with great defense and goalkeeper and score just enough to pull out the victory. But in this game we saw a different side of the team. Sure they only scored one goal, but they looked so much more dangerous throughout than usual.

What coach Denis Hamlett decides to do for the rest of the year will be interesting with both Thorrington and now Pappa looking for playing time in the midfield and Brian McBride coming in to reinforce the front line.

Whether Chicago was better without Blanco is hard to say definitively, but one thing is for sure, they were very different. If they can figure out a way to mix the speed an d energy of the Chivas game with the guile and creativity of Blanco, the Fire have a great chance at an MLS Cup.