Nearly 15 years since plying his trade professionally in Chicago, former Fire defender David Vaudreuil was back in the Windy City Monday afternoon. The first-year manager of USL side and Chicago Fire affiliate Tulsa Roughnecks FC got a taste of Toyota Park during a closed-door scrimmage against select members of Veljko Paunovic’s Men In Red.
“It’s always great to come back,” Vaudreuil said on Monday. “Just to come back and be involved with the Fire in any way is awesome. I couldn’t be happier ending my career here for the two awesome years. I wanted to retire on my own terms and Chicago made it happen. They made it so I was happy. I felt like we had two great years, and this was an awesome place to retire.”
During his playing career, Vaudreuil appeared 26 times for the Fire in MLS play and an additional nine times in the playoffs over the course of the 2001 and 2002 seasons. The two-time MLS Cup winner with D.C. United got a chance to test out his new squad against some of Paunovic’s young players on Monday as a part of its 2017 preseason slate.
“It was good experience for us,” he said. “That’s why we came here. We wanted to get into the stadium, get out there against a bunch of MLS-level players. All in all, it was more than worth it for us for the experience, for the extra fitness, and just the level of play.”
Vaudreuil’s side walked away with a 2-1 win in the friendly, which offered a competitive setting for Fire players who did not feature in Saturday's season-opener at Columbus. Vaudreuil believes the style of play he’s looking to implement during this preseason is one that will mesh well with what Paunovic is establishing in Chicago.
“We’re going to tactically make it work so that it fits in with what they’re doing and with their style of play,” he said. “I think our philosophy and style of play are similar, so that’s good. Veljko and I have had enough conversations and I’ve studied what they’re doing enough that I think we can tactically keep it very cohesive. We expect it to be a very functional relationship in both directions.”
In the short term, Monday’s scrimmage offered Vaudreuil a first up-close look at some of the players who could join his side on loan from Chicago in the upcoming season, which officially kicks off Saturday, March 25. In the long term, it affirmed Vaudreuil’s belief that the partnership between his current and former teams can be one that bears fruit for both sides.
“I expect it to be a comprehensive partnership up-and-down,” he said. “The club knows and the players know that we’re going to make this work. Any time we have the opportunity to give their players the opportunity to play, we’ll make the chemistry work.”
