After ending one of the longest playoff droughts in MLS, the Chicago Fire will look to halt another when they host Orlando City in the Eastern Conference wild-card game on Wednesday night in Bridgeview, Ill.
Chicago finished eighth in the East to end a league-worst run of seven years without a postseason appearance. A victory Wednesday would end the league’s longest gap between playoff wins — one that stretches back to 2009.
The Fire set club records for goals (68) and away wins (nine) under first-year manager Gregg Berhalter in his first job since departing the U.S. men’s national team. They’re unbeaten in their last five after rallying to a 2-2 draw on Saturday against New England in both teams’ regular-season finale. High-scoring tandem Hugo Cuypers and Philip Zinckernagel combined for 32 goals.
Even so, Berhalter admits his side is a work in progress.
“We have very high expectations, very high standards,” Berhalter said. “But you have to start somewhere. And I think that we’ve made progress this year, certainly across the board. But having said that, I think there’s still a ways to go, and we still want to keep improving. I mentioned early on in (a) press conference that I see this club as a sleeping giant, and I really believe that.”
Orlando makes its sixth consecutive playoff appearance under manager Oscar Pareja, but Lions fans may be disappointed that their side finished ninth in the East one year after reaching their first conference final.
The visitors have lost two straight and have won only once in their last 10 across all competitions, a stretch that began with a disappointing fourth-place Leagues Cup finish.
That said, with Marco Pasalic, Martin Ojeda, Ramiro Enrique, Luis Muriel and Duncan McGuire, Pareja has one of the deepest attacks in the league. And in his 13th season coaching in MLS, he knows sometimes it only takes one positive result to reverse fortunes.
“You cannot forget about all what happened during the year; the good things, the things that we’re not satisfied with, the mistakes that we don’t want to commit again, but also the many other things that we would like to be repeated,” Pareja said. “But at the end of the day, today is a new journey, a new stage. It’s a game that defines everything.”
–Field Level Media
