Following his departure from the United States Men’s National Team, Gregg Berhalter returns to Major League Soccer to become head coach and sporting director of the Chicago Fire. It is Berhalter’s first time back in the league since leaving the Columbus Crew in 2018 to become head coach of the USMNT. He has a tall order ahead of him to turn around the Fire, who have missed the MLS postseason for seven straight seasons. In fact, they have only made the playoffs a total of once in the last twelve seasons.
“After a thorough and detailed search involving a number of exceptional candidates, it became clear that Gregg Berhalter was the right choice to lead our sports operations,” said Joe Mansueto, owner and chairman of Chicago Fire FC. “His previous success in MLS, where he thrived in a dual role, and his experience leading the US National Team over the past six years, make him ideal for our vision for the club’s future.”
Despite record sales such as Jhon Duran to Aston Villa and Gaga Slonina to Chelsea, the Fire’s investment in big names has not had the expected impact in moving the team forward, with big names such as Xherdan Shaqiri failing to make their mark the MLS. . While they boast a strong academy and are able to identify emerging youth prospects, the Fire need to make top-level signings to keep up.
The bar has been raised by Inter Miami, the Los Angeles teams and others around the league on what it takes to compete, but the Fire haven’t been afraid to invest, only that investment hasn’t paid off. They broke their transfer record by signing Hugo Cuypers from Genk, but he responded by scoring just 10 goals in 30 appearances so far this season. That’s not enough to push the Fire to compete on his own, which is why he will need more help in the coming campaign.
This is where Berhalter comes in, as he has the ability to build the sporting side of the club as he sees fit. He’s done it before with the Crew, leading them to play-off appearances and an exciting brand of football, but this task will be much more difficult because of how deep the Fire’s holes are and how inflexible their roster is on paper in the run-up to the 2025-2026 season. . There will be a lot of changes coming and if Berhalter does well it will be a way to quickly put the bad taste of being eliminated from the Copa America group stage behind him, but it is also the toughest job he has done so far. Berhalter has many connections in American football that can help make this work, but it’s about working hard from the start and making losing seasons a thing of the past.