It’s difficult to adequately express what a big occasion Saturday’s Round One, Game 2 date with the Philadelphia Union at SeatGeek Stadium is for Chicago Fire FC. (5:30 pm ET | MLS Season Pass, Apple TV)
While meaningful runs in the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs were more or less an annual Windy City ritual in the Fire’s early days, it’s been quite some time since the collective sense of anticipation around the club was anything like it is this week. After around a decade of false dawns, the rebuilding project led by head coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter is bearing fruit in year one.
“We've seen the excitement around the city,” said Berhalter in Thursday afternoon's press conference. “I've mentioned this before, of Chicago Fire being a sleeping giant, and I really believe that. We see people around the street are asking us about the game; there's a lot more attention, tickets are selling a lot quicker than before. And that needs to be the standard.”
Taking on all comers
A sellout is within reach as the Men in Red fight for their postseason lives after pushing the Supporters’ Shield holders to the brink in Sunday’s series opener at Subaru Park. A gripping 2-2 draw decided by penalty-kick shootout belied the No. 1-vs.-No. 8 seeding disparity between them, and flashed some timely tactical flexibility to blunt Philly’s bruising counterpress.
An emphatic 3-1 Wild Card win over Orlando City at SeatGeek lit up by euphoric goal celebrations with the Section 8 supporters’ section gave momentum, and a reminder of the good old days. With just two losses since mid-July, belief is growing in the locker room and beyond, even with breakout star and MLS Best XI contender Philip Zinckernagel’s availability in doubt due to an oblique injury.
“The way we bounced back after going down 2-0, I think that's what's given us the most confidence,” homegrown goalkeeper Chris Brady told MLSsoccer.com this week. “Sending it to PKs and keeping it that close for that long really just instilled that belief in us that, yeah, we can hang with whoever in this league.
“I'm super excited, hoping that our fans show out, and I know all the boys are buzzing,” he added. “It's showing in the way we're training, and I think we really want to stick it to them and get back what we feel we deserve from that last matchup.”
Back from the depths
This has been a long time coming. Thanks to a postseason drought that ranks as the second-longest in league history, Chicago’s last playoff run was almost exactly eight years ago. And it ended prematurely: a 4-0 ‘Knockout Round’ upset loss at the hands of the New York Red Bulls in Bridgeview.
That match offers a memory lane for middle-aged soccer watchers. German icon Bastian Schweinsteiger was the home side’s star attraction, their captain Dax McCarty, who’s nowadays an analyst on MLS Season Pass, working alongside two of his opponents that day, Bradley Wright-Phillips and Sacha Kljestan.
You have to go back even further to find a Fire playoff win: 2009, when John Thorrington – today the co-president and general manager of LAFC – and Cuauhtémoc Blanco scored the goals in a Conference Semifinal win over New England.
Brady was there on that deflating night in 2017, a 13-year-old in attendance with his Fire academy teammates, never guessing he’d be in goal for the next one.
“I wasn't a fan of the final score, obviously. But yeah, I do remember that game,” he said with a grin. “Crazy to think about, for sure.
“Being here in, I would say, the darker times, where we haven't exactly met our goals and played to our standards, making playoffs is obviously a big one. But to be able to do that this year, and then see how this group of guys has progressed under Gregg, it's just been amazing. It's exceeded everything that I could have hoped for, and it's a little bit of unfamiliar territory for me.”
Windy City revival
As Berhalter alluded to, the term ‘sleeping giant’ crops up over and over again in any discussions about CF97, one of MLS’s most persistent underachievers relative to history and market.
“But it actually is,” noted left back and native son Andrew Gutman, whose own trajectory as an academy alum who had to leave town to launch his professional career exemplifies past struggles.
“If you think about the Chicago area and how big of a soccer city Chicago actually is – I'm from here, so I've seen all the youth soccer tournaments. I see how big soccer is in the city, in the suburbs, everything. And it's been, for me, kind of disappointing that the Fire haven't matched what soccer is to Chicago.
“Now we’re better, and we're growing, and we're developing.”
It’s not just the return to the postseason, but the emergence of a flowing, attack-minded style, powered by stout and steady investment on and off the pitch by owner Joe Mansueto. Homegrowns like Brady, Brian Gutiérrez and Sergio Oregel, who represent the tantalizing potential of a massive, diverse local talent pool, have made marked steps forward.
Then there’s the imminent start of construction on a game-changing new stadium at The 78, a 62-acre riverside redevelopment project just south of downtown, slated to open in 2028.
Those long-awaited green shoots of rebirth are finally breaking the soil in The Chi.
“People around the city are starting to take notice of the good work we're doing on the field, and that's sort of translating into how people are feeling around the city as supporters of our sport. I've got a lot more friends that are now interested in wanting to come to games every Saturday,” said Brady, who lives near the new stadium site and balances dreams of playing in Europe with a desire to experience its debut.
“It bleeds into all different walks of life, and you really like to see that the better you perform on the field, it catches the eyes of not just Fire supporters or soccer supporters, but just anybody in general, because that's that's ultimately what we're here to do, is represent the people of Chicago.”
Cinderella story?
It feels early in the project for a deep run, and it’s tempting for outside observers to dub this a moral victory for CF97, whatever the outcome of the series.
Yet Gutman explains that one of Berhalter’s biggest priorities has been a shift in collective mentality.
“I think this year his main goal was trying to flip the mindset of the team,” he said. “We're not here just to play soccer. We're here to compete, to win things for Chicago. And that was said very early on.
“Personally, I don't think that the stadium coming in 2028 is our goal to be back. I think we should be back sooner than that … Hopefully success comes before the stadium, and then when the stadium hits, it just takes it into a whole other level of support throughout the city.”
In Philly, Berhalter sees not only a Goliath to be ambushed, but a role model to learn from.
“When you see Philadelphia as an example, it's a club that also has the short history, but has a recent history of success,” he explained.
“When you're in the stadium for a playoff game, you can see that everyone understands the rituals, everyone understands what's happening in the stadium. And we don't have that yet. We want to build that, and we believe we're on a good pathway, but we have a lot of work to still do.”
