Five Things We Learned: Chicago Fire vs Charlotte FC

In what felt like the team's most complete game to date, the Fire scored four goals against Charlotte, the first time any MLS team has been able to accomplish that in the Queen City (Southern edition).

Here's four things we learned from the statement win by Berhalter and his squad.

1. This team is better than last year’s

Maybe this isn’t news to anyone here, but now it’s no longer a matter of opinion.

By my math (I’ll update when we get official confirmation on this), the Fire have had the lead for 274 minutes this year, five more than the 269 they had over the course of the 2024 season. And they’ve got 21 games – comfortably more than half the season – to go.

I don’t know where the Fire will end up in the standings, and it’s almost certainly not going to be all smooth sailing from here on out, but after a 2024 season that was utterly devoid of joyful moments, it’s a welcome change. Going to get technical here but: Seeing your team win is fun. The Fire have been doing that more (almost three times more per 90 minutes), and so they’ve been more fun to watch.

This team has simply been better than last year’s, on both ends of the ball. They’ve looked more cohesive on offense, they’ve been better in transition moments, and have really started to figure things out on defense. Which brings us to….

2. The Fire can put together a complete game

For the first time this season, the Fire scored the first goal of the game and didn’t give up the lead. In every other win, the team made things difficult, either by going behind (as they did against FC Dallas and Toronto) or conceding a tying goal (as they did against Vancouver and Atlanta).

This week, even though it took until the 42nd minute for Jonathan Bamba to break through, the Fire never trailed and it always felt like the game was in the visitor’s hands. In the first half, they limited Charlotte to one shot on target, while landing three of their own.

Earlier in the season, the Fire attack was fun to watch but every ball going the other way was a nail-biter, with the Fire’s error-prone defense making it feel like even an innocent ball could turn into something for the Fire’s opponents. Against Charlotte, the Fire looked confident and composed on defense for almost the entire game, and it felt like the momentum was almost always in the visitor’s favor.

The result was a more complete game, where the Fire felt like the strong attacking play they’ve shown was matched with good defensive play. This isn’t surprising, in some ways. Captain Jack Elliott told us on Thursday that the team needed to develop “understanding” and “consistency,” which he said was “not something that usually happens overnight,” but which they’ve been showing in recent weeks.

It’s too early to say those days of defensive gaffes are firmly behind the Fire, but if they keep it up, the direction and narrative around this team changes significantly.

3. We’re seeing lots of individual growth

At some point last year, someone in a groupchat said Brian Gutiérrez “defends like he’s Messi – and he ain’t Messi.” While the Fire homegrown was in a rough situation, being shuttled between roles as a midfield creator and an attacking winger, where it felt like he never had a set job description, it was fair to say that whatever his talents might be in the attack, he gave the Fire next to nothing defending.

Gutiérrez assisted on the opening goal against Charlotte then notched a brace himself, but he was also active on the other end of the ball. He had an interception, two tackles, two clearances and one block per Opta, and while those aren’t exactly Moisés Caicedo numbers, he was active in tracking back and helping his team defend, whether that was getting into position to close down a cross or making an active defensive play. More than half of Gutiérrez’s touches were in the Fire’s half of the pitch, despite it being a game where his team peppered Charlotte’s net with 23 shots.

That is a huge step forward for the 21-year-old midfielder, but he isn’t alone in showing significant growth. The Fire’s other starting midfielders have taken steps up: Sergio Orgel Jr. has become a reliable starter in MLS, a massive step up from where he was projected to be this season. Mauricio Pineda is looking like the player the Fire hoped he’d become earlier this decade.

Growth hasn’t just been in the midfield: Sam Rogers grew in confidence after a shaky start where he got a yellow in the 8th minute, but Jonathan Dean?

Dean has been a fan-favorite in his time in Chicago because of his workman-like play but in 2025, the Fire’s lone signing from lower-division USL has hit a new level. He marked Charlotte’s Wilfred Zaha more-or-less out of the game, keeping the DP winger to one shot – an low-percentage attempt from distance off a corner that the Fire blocked. In addition to one of the reasons that Zaha had such a frustrating experience, the Macon, Ga. native had a cheeky look on net in the 66th minute. Nothing came for it, but the player who once looked more like a stay-at-home right back was getting into good positions to be a pass option in the Fire’s build up and attack throughout the match.

One of the narratives around the Fire this year is the growth we’re seeing from so many corners. Yes, most of the new signings have been decent, but the biggest impact so far has come from so many members of the squad taking a (or two, three or four) steps forward.

4. Berhalter has a lot of tools in his toolbelt

Following last week’s game against Atlanta, Hugo Cuypers was temporarily in the lead in the MLS Golden Boot race. A lot of teams with a striker of that quality are dependent upon them to do a lot of the heavy lifting. Or, at least, even if the attack can flow through multiple channels, it typically lands to the striker to be on the end of things.

The Fire aren’t one of those teams. Hugo Cuypers had a number of good looks on goal but wasn’t able to finish any of them. Instead, it was Jonathan Bamba who opened the scoring.

When the Fire got a penalty kick at a time when it felt like Charlotte were pushing their way back into the game, it wasn’t the Fire’s leading scorer who stepped up, but Brian Gutiérrez.

After scoring from the spot last week, Cuypers said that the choice of who steps up when penalties are awarded is decided on a “case-by-case” basis. “It’s an in-the-moment thing, who feels like taking it… the other guy has always respected the fact that the first guy feels confident and has it worked out.” For whatever reason, Cuypers didn’t look confident against Charlotte.

Gutiérrez, however, – who, going into the match, had only scored once after the Fire’s season opener against Columbus back in February – did. As a result, Guti got his second brace of the season.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Bamba, who after looking electric in that Columbus match had become quieter and quieter for the Fire since gave the Fire exactly what they needed, scoring off a beautiful curling shot in the 42nd minute, his eighth goal contribution on the year. Opposite him Philip Zinckernagel continued to be a rock for the Fire, scoring his fourth goal of the year.

And that doesn’t say anything about the strong pay the Fire again got from players off the bench, including Omari Glasgow, Maren Haile-Selassie and Rominigue Kouamé. They were given limited minutes against Charlotte, but the Fire should feel confident with them as starters – something that may happen as soon as Tuesday, when the Fire face a win-or-go-home Open Cup match.

5. It’s time to re-evaluate this team’s ceiling

Preseason predictions exist primarily as a way to make “experts” look foolish, but they do serve as a useful barometer for where people that spend a lot of time thinking (and writing and talking) about the league think’s ceiling and floor is.

Major League Soccer’s panel had the Fire holding down the ninth and final postseason spot – sneaking into the only spot where you make the postseason but don’t get a game in front of home fans. Backheeled’s panel had the Fire between fifth and 10th.

Until a few weeks ago, that seemed roughly fair. Then came the gigantic loss to Nashville – and it felt like maybe, the Fire’s already-visible problems would come to define the season: The team’s offensive skill made them fun to watch, but defensive mistakes would hold the team back.

That horrific loss turned out to be a turning point – but not the one that some feared. Since then, in 360 minutes of competitive soccer, the Fire have allowed one opposing player to score on them, with the Fire’s other goal coming in the form of an own goal. While it’s still a small sample size, it does feel like the Fire have started to figure things out on defense, and the offense has continued to click.

Chicago scored four goals against defensively-stout Charlotte – the first time in that team’s history that they’ve ever conceded that many at home, and the first time they’ve conceded four goals anywhere since 2023 in a game where it felt like the Fire were going to win the match for almost the entire game.

On top of that, this year, the Fire have:

• Handed Vancouver their only loss of the MLS season to date (and one of just two in all competitions, with the other coming back in February, before the MLS regular season had started)
• Held Inter Miami scoreless (the only time that’s happened in league play)
• Kept Orlando off the board despite being down a man for 50+ minutes
• Defeated Atlanta, a near-consensus-pick as one of the top teams in the East

Yes – you can put all the asterisks you want over some of those. Atlanta have looked rudderless all year. Whitecaps fans will tell you that Vancouver was missing a lot of key players to international duty (the Fire were without Gutiérrez and Glasgow, and it was Leonardo Barroso’s first start of the year). The wheels look like they’ve started to come off of Inter Miami a bit and Toronto managed a draw against them a week before the Fire did.

And the losses – to teams projected to be the league’s elite, like FC Cincinnati and the Columbus Crew, as well as the New York Red Bulls and the large defeat to Nashville – still happened. That shows that the team still isn’t really hasn’t pushed itself into the same conversation as any of those teams.

Still: This was supposed to be a near impossible stretch for the Fire’s schedule, and the team have held their own or better.

Based on the play in recent weeks along with the trajectory the team has shown – with individuals and the team as a whole growing significantly over the course of the season, it now seems fair to say that the team’s ceiling is higher than many thought. This isn’t guaranteed to be a team that gets – or is fighting for – home advantage in the first round of the playoffs, but it’s starting to feel like it can be.