In his first year at the club, Chicago Fire FC Head Coach and Director of Football Gregg Berhalter has led his side to a playoff berth. It’s just the 14th appearance in the postseason for the club that was inaugurated in 1998 season and the first since 2017.
Given that literally more than half the clubs in Major League Soccer make the playoffs every year, an eight year drought is considerably bad. However, the weight has been lifted now, as the Fire are FINALLY back in the postseason.
“You know, the beauty of MLS playoffs is that once you get in, anything can happen,” Berhalter said last weekend after his team clinched a postseason berth with a win at Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami CF.
“And you know, I’m not going to sit here and tell you our new objective is to win it all but our objective is to compete, every
series we’re in, every game we’re in because you know that can lead to an opportunity.
“That’s all we’re looking for is an opportunity to compete.”
The Fire sit eighth in the table, situated into the play-in game, with two matches left to play. They can still get into the “real playoffs” (by that we mean the top seven), as they trail 7th play Orlando City by just one point.
Chicago Fire FC trails 6th place Nashville SC by three points, plus they hold a game in hand on them, so that slot is still in play too.
No matter what happens, they’ll end up in a much better position than some of the Major League Soccer O.G.s and traditional Eastern Conference powers.
“At this point, we’re playing spoiler,” D.C. United goalkeeper Luis Barraza said to R.Org. “We’re going to play teams that are trying to get into the best playoff spot possible, and we have a duty and a responsibility to carry this out until the end of the season in the best way possible.
“We have to look at these last four games as a precursor to next year.”
Indeed D.C. is dead last in the table and seem to have been stuck in perpetual rebuild for awhile. Then you have the New England Revolution, who are also on a downward slide. Their trip to the Chicago Fire FC a couple weeks ago saw their postseason dreams evaporate, in beautiful Bridgeview, IL.
But as for the Fire, they have some house money to play with right now, as a chance to move up the table is still there for the taking.
It all starts tonight, when they welcome lower table side Toronto FC to Soldier Field, for the home regular season finale.
Paul M. Banks is the Founding Editor of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He currently contributes to USA Today’s NFL Wires Network. His past bylines include the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Washington Post and ESPN. You can follow him on Linked In and Twitter