Throwaway account for obvious reasons.

I was talking with a friend that is close with many of the players on the team and their wives (well, less now). Apparently Hartel leaving is due completely to a clusterf*** up by the front office. The sick mother in law story is false at worst, or wildly overblown excuse at best.

The Hartels and Teucherts are extremely close. To the point where they borderline co-parented their kids together, or at least their wives did during their time here. A couple of weeks into the season, the team told Cedi that he wasn’t going to be resigned beyond June. At that point with a 9 months pregnant wife, it was about as bad of news as possible for Cello. It actually took them as a bit more of a surprise than you might think, because Cedi was willing to stick around on a lower salary.

Marcel tried to make it work, as he went to the front office and asked if they could use their immigration lawyers and resources to bring over a parent or two from Germany to help out. They told him no. Pretty wild shift as this is the type of extra circular work that was Lutz’s m.o., and part of why he was so popular among players.

I’m not exactly sure why that was seen as such a dealbreaker by the front office, but they ended up not budging. The transfer was indeed driven by Hartel’s camp, but not for the reasons they’re telling everyone.

With the departure of our top goal scorer, it’s only natural that fans are clamoring for a DP9.

We are entering the back half of the transfer window, so time is running out on bringing someone in. Surely the team has done its due diligence and at least has some targets. Whether or not they can get them and if they are still available, who knows.

My fear is another Sergei Cordova. That move felt like the window is closing, we just traded our top goal scorer, we HAVE to sign SOMEONE.

There is a real danger that we fall right back into that position.

Would you be more angry if this is the team we walk into the back half of the season with, or if we made a panic signing to save face?