The early portion of Aleksandar Katai’s Chicago Fire career has not been a smooth curve.
The Serbian playmaker signed with the Fire on loan Feb. 6 and joined the team in camp a couple weeks later. The late start wasn’t ideal to work in a new player, but he still started the March 10 season opener.
Katai scored the Fire’s first goal in a 4-3 loss to Sporting Kansas City and was named the team’s Man of the Match. Despite that, after the game coach Veljko Paunovic said he was not satisfied with Katai’s play.
“I think he has a huge potential and we have to work to help him,” Paunovic said then. “Give him also time. I’m definitely sure that he can impact the game more, but he needs time and… the team needs time to figure it out.”
Two games later Katai was subbed out at halftime and then didn’t play in the Fire’s 1-0 win against Columbus. The shift from David Accam’s heir apparent — at least in terms of position — to seemingly out of favor with Paunovic happened quickly.
Katai once again didn’t start in the Fire’s 1-0 loss to the LA Galaxy, but did come off the bench. Saturday he returned to the starting lineup and scored one of the early goals of the season.
😱😱😱😱😱😱#RBNYvCHI #cf97 https://t.co/TzvbyBM5HO
— Chicago Fire FC (@ChicagoFire) April 21, 2018
Later in the game, he drew a penalty kick that ended up being decisive in the 2-1 road win against the New York Red Bulls.
The Fire are a team without much in the way of creative players in the attacking midfield. Katai’s abilities, the ones that won him the scoring title in the Serbian league’s 2015-16 season and earned him a contract with Spanish La Liga side Alaves, seem like they should be a fixture in the Fire’s lineup.
So what happened?
“Everyone can improve, and in his case we wanted to see that his decision making when he keeps the ball and when he plays the ball and, obviously, when he’s committing the defenders has to be more consistent and have more impact,” Paunovic said after training on Wednesday. “When we saw that that’s coming in training first we kind of tried to build that through the games, through coming off the bench also. In the game against LA we saw some good performance, improvement and the next level was to prepare to see if he can the start for Red Bulls. Then he did well in training and that’s the qualities that he brought.”
Paunovic also said Katai went through the typical adjustment period of getting used to the team and the league. Katai didn’t want to question a coach’s move to not start him to two straight games, but did say he thinks he is getting better.
“I think every team, every player needs some time to see how is the league, how is the player, how is the teammates,” Katai said. “Every game I think we will play better and better.”