Berhalter on progress, signings, and Neymar

As the Fire wrapped up their first week of training in the Endeavor Health Performance Center, the team’s new, state-of-the-art training facility and prepared to fly to California for the last phase of their preseason, Chicago Fire Head Coach and Director of Football Gregg Berhalter gave updates on the team’s progress so far this preseason, the potential for new signings, the integration of his greatly reworked squad, and pulled back the curtain (slightly) on the team’s efforts to sign a Brazilian winger that you might have heard of.

On the new performance center

The Fire kicked off training at the performance center inside the dome on Tuesday. Although the temperature was a relatively balmy 40º that day, high winds would have made training difficult, if not impossible. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Fire’s first team took to the outdoor hybrid pitch for the first time.

Asked about the facilities and to compare it to what he experienced traveling to most of the continent’s premier venues as head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team, Berhalter held no punches: “It’s right up there. I think the Endeavor Health Performance Center is one of the top facilities in America, if not the world. Just the finishes, the attention to detail, the space being over 50,000 square feet, the field quality, all that is amazing.”

The facility can help the team recruit players. As Berhalter explained, “We want to create an environment where people believe that they can come and develop to their full potential. And this is an example of that. The Performance Center is an example of how we're going to help develop them. When I'm speaking to all these players across the globe, when I show them what we have in store, and I talk about the group, I talk about our history of developing and selling players, and when I talk about the performance center, their eyes light up, because it's a great package.”

Media were given access only to a small portion of the facility, where some of those finishes are still being completed, and team staffers are continuing to relocate to the venue from Bridgeview. The team has said that they will provide a more complete tour, including video content, in the coming weeks.

“Intensity” in game model

The pace of team training, witnessed by MIR97 Media both this week and in the opening week of the season, have been notably intense and high tempo. Berhalter explained it saying that “our game model needs intensity, it needs a lot of effort, and these guys need to be fit, and these guys need to be putting a lot into it. So, we set the tone with these training sessions.”

The coach was complimentary of the work his squad put in during a week when the Fire played no preseason matches, saying, “The guys are grinding today. We did duels, 1v1s, 2v2s, 4v4s, 6v6, you know, a real intense training session. Before this week started, we talked about using this week as a building block, and an important building block, to get us ready for the next step, which is going to be heavily focused on competition.”

As for the team’s goals in the final phase of their preseason, the Coachella Valley Invitational tournament, the goal is “continuing to build both fitness-wise and understanding of our game model. We think we’re in a good place… but for us, it’s just to continue to build and improve.”

Playing style: “High pressing” on defense, “control the game” on offense

A key question for the Fire this offseason is how quickly the team would adapt to Berhalter’s style and system. There’s two moving parts: The squad overhaul, that’s seen 11 players come in, with roughly half the anticipated starting XI for the squad turning over so far, and helping transition the remaining players to the new system.

Asked how the team is getting to playing with the identity that Berhalter sees, he said “We’re getting there. I mean, the guys are starting to understand that, defensively, we want to be high-pressing. We want to be difficult to play against. We want to be compact. We saw that so far in our games this preseason. Control the game and disorganize the opponent and keep the ball and create goal scoring opportunities. So, you know, we're working on that. I think we've done a good job with that. I think the final piece about finishing attacks, we can be cleaner, and we can continue to develop that.”

The message seems to be getting through – speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Sergio Oregel said almost the same thing verbatim about the team’s style this season, with the young midfielder noting that it’s a system similar to the one that Berhalter used with both the national team.

It might be telling that both of them listed defense first.

On Neymar, and other moves

The closest the Fire have come to shaking up the soccer world in recent years was when reports came out that the team had made an offer to acquire Brazilian superstar Neymar Jr. from Saudi Pro League club Al-Hilal.

Reporting from multiple sources indicated that the Fire’s offer was genuine and that direct salary was roughly in line with the MLS-record deal that brought Lionel Messi to Inter Miami. Still – with the rumors having come out of nowhere and disappeared just as quickly, it was unclear how serious the Fire were in their pursuit of Brazil’s all-time leading scorer.

Berhalter insists that the interest was real. “I don't know where everything stands in terms of what I'm able to say or not, you know, based on what he's doing,” the Fire manager said, “But what I'd say is that there was 100% commitment from our end. And we probably gave him a better offer than he would receive anywhere else in the world. That's what I'd say.”

Santos, the only other club concretely linked to Neymar this window, is almost certainly unable to offer the star player the salary the Fire did, as the club is awash in debt and their reported wage bill last season was around $9 million US – not far off from the roughly $8.2 million the Fire promised Xherdan Shaqiri that year.

This is already the team’s busiest transfer window since the 2022 season that saw the Fire bring in the former Swiss national team hero, but Berhalter has indicated the team might not be done yet. “We're still waiting to get [Jonathan] Bamba and [Rominigue] Kouamé in town, right? So, that hasn't happened yet. And we could potentially add up to two players to the roster.”

The transfer window in most of Europe is slated to close at midnight local time on Monday, and the MLS window is now officially open. The Fire can continue to buy players from anywhere in the world through the close of the window in late April, but in countries where the transfer window has closed, the team will be unable to bring in replacements until the summer. Still, that creates a situation where teams in Europe or South America looking to offload players (and net a transfer fee) have few buyers outside of MLS.

The team is headed to the Coachella Valley Invitational tournament, with their next preseason game against Los Angeles FC. Streaming details have not been announced but it is likely that some – but not all – of the Fire’s games will be available to watch in some capacity, somewhere.