The Fire traded midfielder Daniel Paladini to the Columbus Crew in exchange for Columbus’s fourth round pick in the 2014 MLS SuperDraft, the club announced on Thursday. Paladini had previously opted out of Thursday’s Re-Entry Draft, as the trade was announced after the completion of the draft that saw the Fire lose Corben Bone to the Philadelphia Union.
Head Coach and Director of Soccer Frank Yallop explained to Chicago-Fire.com the reasoning behind the move, citing fellow midfielder Alex as the primary reason. Alex, four years younger than Paladini, would fit into the same spot in the Starting XI in Yallop’s system, thus the desire to find more playing time for the twenty-five-year-old Brazilian necessitated the trade.
The Fire made another trade with their midwestern rivals last offseason, trading striker Dominic Oduro to the Ohio club for midfielder Dilly Duka and the rights to midfielder Robbie Rogers. Rogers displayed his skepticism of the concept of trading rights to a player on his twitter account following the trade, and shortly thereafter retired from professional soccer as he revealed that he was homosexual. The former U.S. national team member and 2008 MLS Cup champion as a member of the Crew would not stay in retirement long and began training with the LA Galaxy just months later, despite still being under contractual control of the Fire, whom he did not wish to play for. Fortunately, a trade could be worked out after Galaxy midfielder Mike Magee requested a trade to his hometown team, and went on to score fifteen regular season goals as a striker for the Fire, winning the 2013 Volkswagen MLS Most Valuable Player award.
Paladini has been a member of the Fire since 2011, scoring four goals in fifty-eight appearances in a primarily bench role.