Mexico Star Pavel Pardo To Sign With Chicago Fire :Reports

Pavel Pardo has been linked with a move to the Chicago Fire for months and now it appears as if the former Mexico and Club America star is ready to head to MLS. According to reports from Doug McIntyre and John Sutcliffe, Pardo will sign with Chicago in the coming days in hopes of turning around a club that has the second-fewest points in MLS.

With Pardo aging, it looked as if his time with Club America had come to an end by the end of last year. He turns 38 on July 26 and had Pardo returned to play with the Mexico City club he probably would have seen out the rest of his career from the bench. How successful the man with 148 caps for Mexico can be with the Fire remains a doubt considering his age and visible decline in skill, but he will certainly get plenty of chances with the talent-poor Fire.

Pardo will man the midfield for the Fire, but a defensive midfielder is hardly what they need. In fact, it might be the only position on the field in which Chicago are adequate. What Pardo brings to the Fire is a marketable, big name player, like the several other Mexican stars that Chicago has had before. The Fire once had Jorge Campos and in recent years have had Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Nery Castillo on the books. Add in Carlos de los Cobos managing the team until earlier this year and the Fire have a long history of employing big name Mexicans.

This signing will surely help the team in their search for a shirt sponsor, having been without one since their deal with Best Buy ended after last season. Best Buy initially signed on as a shirt sponsor when the Fire signed Blanco and they were expanding into Mexico. A marketable star like Pardo will certainly make Chicago more appealing to sponsors, just as Blanco did.