5 Things We Learned: Chicago Fire 2, CF Montréal 0

The Chicago Fire found their way back in the win column with a 2-0 victory over CF Montréal. The win gives the team 32 points, two more than the Fire managed in all of 2024 with 11 games left to play.

With the win, the squad also notched up a few individual accomplishments: Philip Zinckernagel became the first Fire player in team history to notch 10 goals and 10 assists in a season – a feat made all the more remarkable considering that in the league’s early years, when the Fire were one of the most dangerous teams in the league, the standards for secondary assists were considerably looser than they are today. Zinckernagel tied Josef Martínez’s league record of 10 consecutive road games with a goal or assist, putting an underline on the Dane’s accomplishments this season as he heads to the MLS All-Star game Wednesday.

Hugo Cuypers also scored his 13th goal of the season, giving him the most by a Fire player since C.J. Sapong hit that number in 2019. (Robert Berić’s 12 goals in the COVID-shortened 2020 season came in one more match than Cuypers has played so far.) Next up on the team’s single-season tally list? Nemanja Nikolić’s 15 goals in 2018, followed by his Golden Boot-winning tally of 24 in the 2017 season.

Here’s five things we learned from the Fire’s win in la belle province.

1. The team can get the job done

With the team on the outside of the postseason looking in and still searching for their first win in July, the game on Saturday felt like a “must win” for the Fire if this year’s edition was to have a better fate than what we’ve seen from recent teams: Montréal is, and was, “leading” the race for the Wooden Spoon given to the team with the worst record in MLS.

Around this point in the season last year, the Fire went on the road to face the San Diego Earthquakes, then also last place in the league’s standings, and left with no points after a 1-0 loss, and the Fire’s eventual last-in-conference finish was due in no small part to losing games that, on paper, were winnable.

This year, faced with a similar situation, they took care of business in a comfortable, if not exactly awe-inspiring, 2-0 win. Montréal had a pretty good game plan against the Fire and did their best to execute it, keeping the Fire from lengthy spells of possession in dangerous areas and committing every player on the pitch to winning loose balls and generally making life difficult for their more-skilled opponents.

Ultimately, however, the Fire flashed enough skill and determination to get the job done and complete their sweep in Canada, winning all three of their games in the land of chesterfields and multi-colored money this season. If this year’s team is to do something we haven’t seen a Fire squad do since 2017 and make the postseason, it will be due in no small part to winning the games that the team should win.

2. The break can’t come soon enough

At the end of the game in Montréal, the Fire squad looked like dead men walking. Sure,it isn’t unusual to see exhausted players on a soccer field. There are matches where players collapse in triumph or defeat after a close-fought battle of 90 (or more) minutes, having tested their endurance throughout.

This wasn’t one of those. From the opening whistle, the Fire may have been playing in their red kits but they were also wearing each of the 480 minutes of competitive football that the team played in the previous two weeks.

The fatigue manifested itself in different ways: The game plan didn’t seem to involve the aggressive pressing we’ve come to associate with the team, despite the fact that Montréal is a great candidate to cough up the ball in dangerous situations if pressed. Passes didn’t seem to quite land right far more often than we’ve come to associate with this team, causing recipients to turn to receive the ball or lose a step of their run.

Andrew Gutman, who has been a stalwart on both ends of the ball for the Fire all season, was getting his number called by Joel Waterman and Dante Sealy and didn’t really find the explosive speed we’ve seen from him going the other way. As a result, he was subbed off in the 63rd minute for Jonathan Dean, the first time that the Fire academy product hasn’t gone the distance since May.

“We were on fumes,” Fire Head Coach Gregg Berhalter said after the match, “and we asked the guys to dig deep and push, and they did a great job.”

Exhaustion permeated through the squad. Philip Zinckernagel, when asked about participating in the All-Star game midweek, said “Right now, I’m pretty dead, I’m not going to lie. Tough three games this week. But tomorrow, I’ll be looking forward to it.”

The rest of the squad has a full week to train and recover for the first time this month before hosting the New York Red Bulls next Saturday. After that, the team has two weeks before their next match and the squad looks very much like they could use the time off.

3. The midfield needs new ideas

Look: It’s important not to over-index one performance, or even a handful of performances. In July, the Fire faced many of the toughest teams in the league in quick succession before an exhausted team faced Atlanta and Montréal this week.

Early in the season, one of the reasons the Fire looked like such a dynamic team was their ability to create in the midfield, with the team pulling in opposition players towards, creating gaps elsewhere on the pitch that the Fire’s attackers could exploit.

That didn’t really happen in Montréal, nor did it happen in Atlanta. It’s become enough of a trend to say that it’s an issue, and although fatigue might be a factor here, it doesn’t explain the problem away.

Credit where credit is due: Montréal played the game with commitment for the full 90 minutes, jumping on loose balls and clogging up space for the midfield whenever possible. Still, they are a squad are in transition, having sold one of their top defenders and defensive midfielders in recent weeks, and if the Fire can’t do it against them, it’s hard to see who they can do it against.

The problem also doesn’t come down to personnel alone, considering it is one of the positions where the team does have a number of options. That also means it’s one of the areas that is least likely where fatigue can explain the performance, with Mauricio Pineda taken out of the starting lineup against Atlanta so he could rest and with Kellyn Acosta, Rominigue Kouamé and Djé D’Avilla having some of the freshest legs on the team.

The team needs new ideas in the position to achieve what they can as a group. Whether that’s improvement from within, simplifying having more time on the training pitch and video room, or bringing in a new player to the group, I don’t know, but this has gone from an area of strength to one that could be holding the team back.

4. The set pieces are coming together

Despite the number of soccer games decided by the slimmest of margins (it is, after all, a “low-event sport,” where one goal is often all you need to win a game), the importance of set pieces were often overlooked. Anyone who played the game as a child heard some variation – often spoken, in this writer’s experience, in an English accent, even on these shores – of “get in the mixer,” the area near the goal clogged with bodies – on corners, and that, all too often, was that.

That laissez-faire attitude towards corners, free kicks and throw-ins, however, has begun to change throughout the sport in recent years and in 2024, the Chicago Fire became one of the first teams in MLS to hire a dedicated set piece coach in Ryan Needs.

It didn’t really pay off that year, with the Fire looking as ineffective on set pieces as they had in other recent seasons. Still, Needs was one of the only coaching holdovers to remain with the team after Berhalter began reworking the staff in the offseason alongside goalkeeper coach Zack Thornton.

Despite the Fire’s overall offensive prowess this season, however, few of the team’s goals were coming off of set pieces – until recently.

Jack Elliott’s first (and, frankly, overdue) goal of the season came off of a corner, marking the third game in a row where the FIre scored off a corner, following Zinckernagel’s olimpico against Atlanta and Cuypers’s goal in San Diego, served in by Maren Haile-Selassie.

While the Fire aren’t close to being Minnesota United – who have made everything from throw-ins to free kicks a central part of the team’s success this season – in this department, it’s still a welcome sight as the team goes down the stretch, since they can be a literal difference maker in tight matches.

5. Berhalter’s shopping list is writing itself

This was the Chicago FIre’s last game before the summer transfer window opens in MLS on July 24th. (We’ll have comprehensive coverage of the Fire’s current roster, salary cap and depth charts leading up to that date, and will cover all the moves as they happen.)

Although Berhalter is up against both roster and cap limits, he’s indicated that the team intends to strengthen in the squad ahead of a push in the team’s final third of the season they hope will see the team into the playoffs. And man, is the writing on the wall for where the team needs help.

Center-back has to be at the top of the list. Many of the goals the Fire have conceded this season have come because of issues with the back line, due, in no small part, to the rotating cast of players that have played next to captain Jack Elliott at the position.

Part of that is due to injuries at the position: When Omar González came on for Sam Rogers, unable to continue with an apparent ankle injury, the Fire were left with no center-backs on the bench.

But it isn’t just injuries: When he was healthy, Carlos Terán was still struggling to find the level of play that the team needs from the spot, and while it’s entirely possible that the Colombian defender could grow into the role, the fact is, when he last appeared in a Fire uniform, he hadn’t. Rogers has already played above any reasonable expectations set for him in his first year in the league, but still has not looked like a high-level starter, nor can 36-year-old Omar González be relied upon to be a game-in, game-out option in the XI. And although Christopher Cupps has shown a lot of promise, he is 17 years old and will have many ups and downs before he finds his level on a consistent basis.

Elliott hasn’t been infallible, but many of the problems that have come from the former West Virginia Mountaineer relate as much to the fact that he’s had to cover extra ground as his partner in the position gets pulled out of space.

While it isn’t the team’s only position of need – and many fans are eager to see the team sign a third Designated Player to enhance the attack this window – the team’s primary needs, having scored the fourth most goals in MLS to date  with 44, aren’t at that end of the pitch. Another defender at (or above) Elliott’s level would do more to help the team get results down the stretch than a high-level attacking option could.