Chicago Fire midfielder Dax McCarty wore the captain’s armband Saturday night as his side thrashed Orlando City SC 4-0 in front of a sell-out crowd at Toyota Park. After the game, he showcased how and why he’s earned the captaincy by articulating this message of leadership to the media.
He explained the current zeitgeist within the Chicago Fire locker room.
“The mentality is certainly now let’s not just make the playoffs, because that’s not good enough,” McCarty told reporters.
“Sure, we want to make the playoffs but we want to win the Open Cup, and we want to win MLS cup, and we want to compete for the Supporters Shield. Now is that realistic to compete for all three?
“Why not, why not us? I think that’s our motto and our attitude right now in the locker room, why can’t we win every game?”
Undefeated at home and in their last nine overall, the Fire have every right to be playing loose, and with supreme confidence right now. Their body of work lately is one that would give any competitor high self-esteem. The “why not” motto is one locals have heard before and the previous time that slogan was embraced, it generated stellar results.
Flash back to 2001 Illini football, who bought in to the mantra “Why not Illinois?”
The catch-phrase was all over campus, the Champaign-Urbana community and in the hearts and minds of Illini everywhere. Illinois was coming off a disappointing 5-6 season in 2001, but still rolled all the way to a 10-1 regular season and their first Big Ten title outright since 1983.
It worked beautifully that season (until the Sugar Bowl in a de facto road game against LSU), and it’s working very well in Bridgeview right now. Both Illinois then and the Chicago Fire (10-3-4, 34 points) now turned a losing culture into winning.
“I think goals can always change, but like you (a reporter in the locker room) said, this team in the past hasn’t been good, hasn’t made the playoffs, but the best part of this year is we have a lot of guys who weren’t here and really don’t care about last year or five years ago,” McCarty added.
“It’s totally out of our minds, we have a lot of winners here.”
Can the Chicago Fire win a treble? Seriously?
Hey, why not. They’re just one point behind Toronto FC for first place in the MLS Eastern conference. This is the franchise’s 20th year of existence, and during that time they’ve won six major domestic championship titles, including the 1998 MLS Cup and 1998, 2000, 2003 and 2006 U.S. Open Cups, as well as the 2003 Supporters Shield.
Tonight the Chicago Fire continue their quest for one of those trophies as they travel to USL side FC Cincinnati in the Open Cup Round of Sixteen (7 p.m. CT ESPN2). On the league front, they’ll host the Vancouver Whitecaps on July 1st so happy Canada Day to all our supporters in the Great White North.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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