5 Things We Learned: Chicago Fire vs. Charlotte FC
The Chicago Fire finally got a win in front of home fans, ending a two game goalless drought at Soldier Field as they went up 3-0 against Charlotte before holding on for a 3-2 win. That ultimately felt more comfortable than the scoreline indicates.
Here are five takeaways from the Fire’s sweep of the season series against Charlotte.
1. This team is already better than last year’s
The win gives the Fire eight on the year which, eagle-eyed observers may note, is more than the team had in the entirety of the 2024 season. The team had two more points in 2024 than they’ve had through 19 matches this season. Likewise, the Fire’s 38 goals are likewise just two shy of the total they managed through 34 games last year.
The improved play is also showing up in individual results: Hugo Cuypers’s 11 goals is already one more than last season’s tally, and Brian Gutiérrez’s seven goals improves is one more than his previous best last season. That says nothing about newcomer Philip Zinckernagel, whose 16 goal contributions, split evenly between goals and assists, leads the team and made him an MLS All-Star.
More than that, the results – which often haven’t gone the Fire’s way even in games where they played well – match the eye test. This team feels like it’s a significant improvement on what we saw in 2024.
Despite dialing it up a notch this year….
2. But there’s still a lot to prove
Even if the Fire are one win shy of beating their 2024 points total, there’s still a ways to go. The team were close to having a stranglehold on Charlotte after going up 3-0, then took their foot off the gas. They didn’t look hungry for a fourth in the remainder of the first half, and in the second, they let Charlotte come within a goal.
It wasn’t just this match: Despite controlling the ball better, especially when it’s at an even game state, the Fire have still conceded nearly as many goals per game as they did last season: Through 19 matches, they’re on pace to concede 61 goals, just one fewer than their mark of 62 in 2024.
Some of that is because the Fire’s defensive stability, particularly early in the season, was suspect as the team was adjusting to a more aggressive style when they had the ball. That gave the team more than one or two “when playing out of the back goes wrong” lowlight goals early on. Some of that is due to injuries to the defensive corps, with the team needing to get creative at right back for a series of matches and being out multiple center-backs for much of the season. But it’s still a glaring weakness.
That’s part of why it was concerning to see the Fire allow Charlotte to get within a goal. Speaking of the team’s home losses, Berhalter noted that they’ve come “against the top team in the conference, the second team in the conference, and the third team in the conference. So we weren't ready to beat the top teams yet, and we still may be, but it doesn't mean that we're not making progress, and we're going to continue to.”
The Fire will soon have opportunities to prove they can do that on the road, facing FC Cincinnati (currently second in the Eastern Conference) next Saturday before a U.S. Open Cup match against Minnesota (third in the West) just three days later in the U.S. Open Cup.
3. Dean keeps finding new gears to shift into
When Jonathan Dean came to the Fire ahead of the 2023 season from USL, the hope was that he’d be a competent depth option off the bench for a low salary cap hit. He soon proved more than capable of playing minutes off the bench.
His hard-nosed defensive play made him a fan favorite in Chicago as he earned about a third of the starts in each of his first two years in town, smashing expectations.
Still, his offensive upside was limited: Dean could run, sure, but those runs were often limited to vertical stretches up and down the sideline, and when he did have the ball at his feet, his next move was often a short pass to the nearest teammate or a fairly blind cross into the box.
In 2025, Dean has once again leveled-up. He got the match ball after the game against Charlotte, partly in recognition of his ability to shut down Wilfred Zaha, one of the highest-profile players to arrive in MLS in the offseason.
Dean did more than just close out the former Crystal Palace mainstay: Seconds after kickoff, he had a good outlet pass to Sam Rogers, who played the ball on got Gutiérrez in a sequence seemed impossible for the Fire midweek. He also set up the Fire’s opening goal by Philip Zinckernagel in the 23rd minute.
https://twitter.com/ChicagoFire/status/1939382258416152679
The play gave Dean his fourth assist of the season – and fourth of his MLS career, having never registered an assist in his first two years in the league. That shows the growth in Dean’s game in 2025, going from a quality bench option to a proven starter, actively competing with heralded U-22 Initiative player Leonardo Barroso.
Asked about each of the right backs pushing the other for minutes and starts, Dean said “it’s awesome, ultimately, it's going to make the team better, right? We want to be a playoff team and be a championship-caliber team, so you need players one through 30 to be able to come in and do a job,” later adding “He's a great talent for a young kid, really, it's incredible. We have a good chemistry together already, right? We're supportive of each other when we each get our opportunity. So that's what you want.”
Coming through as a good teammate after a question where most players would make the answer about themselves is in character for the Macon, Ga. native, who Gregg Berhalter said is “the guy that I think embodies the culture and the spirit of this group, a guy who puts his head down and works hard and doesn't complain and is a really good teammate.”
At some point, Dean is going to run out of brick walls to run through, but in the meantime, it’s been a good ride for the Fire, and his numerous fans in the crowd at Soldier Field.
4. Guti’s back
Speaking of players that have a strong following at Soldier Field: Brian Gutiérrez is back. After real questions about his ability to keep his intensity without getting sent off the field following his second suspension of the year, Gutiérrez was active in creating in the midfield on Saturday.
The Fire homegrown notched his career-record seventh goal of the year against Charlotte, and he was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise forgettable performance against the Union midweek.
What Alex Calabrese wrote about him for that match still rings true: He hasn’t been dominant in the final third. His goal numbers this season have been padded by the penalties he’s taken, and he’s struggled to connect with the rest of the Fire’s attack in key moments.
More than that, we still don’t have an example of Gutiérrez taking the team on his back and creating something out of nothing to create a result for the team. But maybe that’s all fine, because Gutiérrez has returned to being a solid contributor to the Fire’s attack, which has
It feels like the Brian Gutiérrez that Fire fans have come to know is back. Coming after 2024 where he committed nearly twice as many fouls as he suffered, he’s now levelling those numbers off and his skill and talent are starting to shine through after a rough disciplinary patch.
Speaking after the game, Berhalter said that Gutiérrez has “a ton of potential,” calling him “one of the more talented players that have been around,” while acknowledging that the area native is “a work in progress,” “just like this team.”
5. But some of the other kids may need more time
Jonathan Dean got the start against Charlotte after Barroso was given the opportunity against the Union midweek. Berhalter was quick to credit Dean’s start to the “heavy load on Wednesday” that Barroso faced.
Fair, as far as it goes, but while the 20 year-old Barroso played 80 minutes on Wednesday, 28-year-old Andrew Gutman played the full 90. And then played another 90 minutes on Saturday. You don’t have to read too much between the lines to see the subtext: Despite the skill that he’s shown, Barroso is not ready to be a game-in, game-out starter.
Still, Barroso is a lot closer to being that player than Djé D’Avilla. Coming on at half for Mauricio Pineda, the 22-year-old D’Avilla inexplicably stopped defending as Zaha whipped the ball to Charlotte’s Pep Biel who put Charlotte on the board in the 56h minute.
While he wasn’t directly responsible for the second goal just three minutes later, he planted his feet rather than committing quickly to defending the Biel who set up Idan Toklamati’s goal that put Charlotte within a goal.
We should all give D’Avilla some grace: He’s played just 200 minutes across seven league games, and his only starts have been in the U.S. Open Cup. He’s also been in Chicago less than three months and is now playing on his fourth continent this decade, having started his professional career in his native Côte D’Ivoire in 2020 before moving to the United Arab Emirates in 2022 and Portugal a year later.
Speaking about the decision to put him in at half, Berhalter said “for us, it was important to get him some game time. We put him in a condition where the game was relatively under control, and then he had to deal when the game lost control. And for him, he's a young player and he needs opportunities to prove that he can play at this level and compete at this level. He does some things extremely well, and we want to continue to work with him and develop him.”
That politely moves past the fact that the Fire lost control of the game in no small part because of D’Avilla’s play, and Fire fans have yet to see the things the upsides of his game.
It’s way, way too early to issue a final verdict on either – or both – U-22 Initiative signings for the Fire this year, but any hopes that they’d be instant difference makers (at least, in a positive way) has been dashed.
