If you’ve read my work over the last three seasons, you know that I’m a bit of a statistics nerd. Very few articles I’ve written fail to have some sort of well-researched number to add a little spice.
This is because I believe numbers play an important role in building tradition and recognizing the history of any club, especially one like the Fire that has been successful both in winning championships and producing some truly fantastic players that have made incredible contributions to the game.
VISIT: TrueCar Player Registry
Before I even began working for this club, I took a deep dive into Fire stat work, spending hours, days, months and now years in meticulously (and manually) entering data to compile together a true Player Registry which could provide a deeper basis for understanding every player’s historical on-field contributions.
Close friends have seen my extensive Excel sheets -- data mines where special care was given to ensure not just MLS regular season and playoff stats made their way into my writing. Given the Fire’s success outside of league play, I always felt it imperative that especially this club gave the full scope of a player’s contributions across all competitions.
This is all by way of saying that after a great deal of double, triple and quadruple checking all data, I’m happy to make those spreadsheets public record by introducing the TrueCar Player Registry on Chicago-Fire.com.
The Registry is the first all-encompassing player record in MLS Digital circles – meaning from the 372 competitive appearances of C.J. Brown to the 12 minutes Miguel Saavedra played in the 2002 CONCACAF Champions Cup, everyone is accounted for and broken down by competition.
While finally having the record online is great, having a presenting sponsor like TrueCar whose basis is in data serves as a perfect tie-in as well. Over the course of the year, look out for different content pieces on Chicago-Fire.com relating to the TrueCar Player Registry.
For now, get your Fire nerd on like I have the last three years: www.chicago-fire.com/playerregistry.
Enjoy,
Jeff Crandall
Editor, Chicago-Fire.com
