Less than a week after Major League Soccer announced that the league would be sending MLS Next Pro teams instead of fielding first-team squads in the U.S. Open Cup, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) released a statement stating that the league’s request would be denied. As such,
At 5:00 PM Eastern on Friday, December 15, MLS Communications announced that MLS teams would not be participating in the 2024 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, and would instead field MLS Next Pro teams in their place. The decision ends over a quarter-century of MLS participation in the
Note: This is the final part of our four part series. If you haven’t already, check out Part I, Part II, and Part III. Shortly after Georg Heitz’s hiring as Sporting Director of the Chicago Fire was announced in December 2019, he met with the media. He set
Note: This is the third part of a four part series. If you haven’t already, check out Part I where we put the Fire’s results in the past four years into context, and Part II, which looks at player signings. Within a few months of being hired in
Note: This is the second part of a four part series. If you haven’t already, check out Part I where we put the Fire’s results in the past four years into context. Perhaps unsurprisingly given the team’s high roster spend and generally disappointing results, many of the
The Fire’s loss on Decision Day gave them an ignominious honor: They now have the longest active playoff drought in the league and are the sole owners of the second-longest playoff drought in league history at six seasons, following only Toronto FC’s eight season stretch from 2007-2014. We’
And so it ends. On March 4, 2023, the Fire opened their 26th regular season in MLS against New York City FC and 231 days later, they face the same opponent – this time in Queens, NY – to finish their regular season. Both teams enter the match with a chance at
Xherdan Shaqiri has company. In what has become a semi-annual tradition, the MLS Players Association has released its salary guide, revealing the pay of each player in the league, and the league has a new highest-paid player: Inter Miami’s Lionel Messi, who has guaranteed annual compensation of $20,446,
With the Fire’s 2-0 loss to Charlotte last Saturday, the Fire are back in a familiar place: on the outside looking in at MLS Cup playoff spots. If the Fire do not secure a postseason position on Decision Day, the team’s playoff drought will stretch to six seasons,
The Chicago Fire played their last home game of the regular season knowing that a win would almost certainly give them a spot in the postseason. They didn’t get it. Playing 72 hours after an electric performance in front of a full house at Soldier Field, the team’s
Four days after hosting a team-record crowd at Soldier Field, the Fire host their regular season home finale Saturday against Charlotte FC, a team that is battling for the same postseason spots as Chicago. The team’s 4-1 over Inter Miami came at a crucial time for the Fire, and
The Fire play their 32nd game of a 34-game regular season on Wednesday night at Soldier Field against the Eastern Conference’s 13th-place team. Of course, that isn’t the main narrative here, nor the way the game has been presented. The game along Lake Michigan will almost certainly become
The Fire traveled to Harrison, New Jersey looking for their first win since the Leagues Cup break. They got it. In a match where both they and the Red Bulls were level on points and on the outside of the postseason picture looking in, the Fire achieved a win – something
The Fire travel to Harrison, New Jersey, to face the New York Red Bulls, a team level with them on points but behind in the standings due to tiebreakers. The point - and, more importantly, dropped points from teams above and below them in the standings, meaning that the playoffs
Two teams in turmoil met at Soldier Field on Saturday, and though both showed mettle, neither ultimately left satisfied as the teams played to a 2-2 draw. The Chicago Fire entered the match in the midst of a team-record goalless drought, and the New England Revolution, on their third head
After a 3-0 shellacking courtesy of a Cucho Hernández hat trick – the second fastest in league history – at Lower.com field in Columbus, Ohio on Wednesday, the Chicago Fire return to Soldier Field for their first and only home game in the month of September. Their opponent is the New
