Heitz recently promised a younger squad, and he’s moving fast to get it. (As an aside, how smart was it for the Fire to ignore all the pundits & fans Re: Chicharito last winter?). This is Heitz 5th South American signing. He’s putting the Basel model in place.Chicago signed a 21 year old Ecuadorian right back from Aucas in his native country. Espinoza captained Ecuador's U20 team at the 2019 U20 World Cup and scored the winning goal in their quarterfinal against the US... He has two caps for the senior NT that came in late 2019 but doesn't appear to be part of the team for WCQ.
Seems like he'll have a solid shot at beating out Boris Sekulic at RB.
https://www.chicagofirefc.com/post/2020/11/23/chicago-fire-fc-acquires-21-year-old-defender-jhon-espinoza
Edit: per this move, it might be more likely that Espinoza is coming into play wingback and Sekulic will play the right side of a back 3. The back 3 is Wicky’s preferred set up, but the talent this season was much more successful in a 4-2-3-1. Part of that was not having the wingbacks. They still need more strength on the wings.
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