To give the team a boost, the Fire Front Office is paying the way for ten buses worth of Fire fans to watch the game from Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. more ›

Chicago Fire is about the adventures of Chicago's Firehouse 55 — or maybe it's just about hot firefighters, we couldn't see past their rugged, sooty good looks. more ›

The Chicago Fire removed the interim tag from Frank Klopas and named him the team's new head coach. more ›

Coming into the match, the Fire had just set the unenviable league record of 15 ties in a season. more ›

Bassist Chris Wolstenholme, from Lollapalooza headlining act Muse came to Bridgeview to run with the Chicago Fire and play a few pickup games before the fest. more ›

The Fire acquitted themselves well against Premier League legends at Saturday's friendly at Soldier Field. more ›

Because Toyota Park remains without power following yesterday's storm, today's Fire match will start at 5 p.m. Oh, and it's free admission, also. more ›

The Fire's 1-4-6 start to the season led to the firing of coach Carlos de los Cobos yesterday. more ›

Kabiru Adewunmi, a 16-year-old member of the Chicago Fire's Juniors North team, was shot and killed Tuesday night in a Chatham convenience store. more ›

The Chicago Fire (1-3-2) was on the edge of a much-needed victory over the Houston Dynamo (2-1-3) Saturday night at Toyota Park until a Houston goal in the 83rd minute dropped Chicago to a 1-1 draw. more ›

A series of easy mistakes and minor breakdowns led to the Chicago Fire's 2-1 loss to the L.A. Galaxy Sunday at Toyota Park. Despite lacking in their usual star power, the Los Angeles (3-1-1) squad was able to capitalize on the Fire's errors, netting two goals before Chicago (1-1-3) made it to the board. more ›

After earning a draw against FC Dallas, the Chicago Fire's MLS home opener is tomorrow against Sporting Kansas City (3 p.m., WPWR-TV Ch. 50, WXFT Telefutura Ch. 60). In his preview of the 2011 Fire, Ben took a cautiously optimistic approach to this team. The Fire's introduction video (below) is another matter entirely. They're using some of that Black Swan score and beautifully edited footage to indicate they think the sky's the limit for this squad. more ›

So it's a team in flux. It's a team without a go-to guy. New leaders will emerge, they must. Fans are looking especially towards new captain Logan Pause and break out goalie star Sean Johnson (who got his first cap in January against Chile). But who's going to get that critical goal in a tight game? Can Marco Pappa, Calen Carr, and/or Patrick Nyarko make the jump from quick skillsters to menacing poachers? more ›

As sports fans in this town, we take our fair share of lumps. But every once in a while, we're rewarded. This past year saw one of our teams reach the pinnacle to bring a title to Chicago, while some disappointed and others took us on a roller coaster of emotions. more ›

College Football more ›

What a season. The Fire were eliminated from playoff contention this weekend, and in a season full of weird, ironic, unexpected twists, it was almost unsurprising that they got eliminated after their best game of the year. Against a solid Columbus team (who, granted, already qualified for the playoffs), it looked like Coach Carlos de los Cobos finally found a way to blend the new signings, the youth, and the veterans. As you can see from the highlights above, the Fire bossed the game from the start. more ›

Chicago Fire fan group Section 8 is one of the best in the country not only because of their organization, unity, and commitment but because they're creative. So, when the Fire played the Seattle Sounders at Toyota Park this Saturday, they poked fun at the fledgling former expansion team (just its second year in the MLS) that is sponsored by Xbox 360 with an old school Mario Bros. inspired tifo. more ›

The Fire head into Philly tomorrow afternoon (5PM CST/ FSC) to check out the expansion Union and the new PPL stadium. Philly is racked with injuries all over the place, especially in defense, and hopefully Fire midfielders and whoever starts up top (probably John again) can take advantage this time. Marco Pappa's return should help connect the midfield to attack, too. Last time the two played, the Fire beat Peter Nowak's squad 2-1. This time there's another former Fire staple representing Philly - surely Justin Mapp will want to show the Fire they made a mistake in letting him go. more ›

Alright here's the thing. Over the past few disappointing weeks, it seemed as if the Fire (6-7-7) have done everything they could to blow their shot at the playoffs. They give up late goals, they give up soft goals on set pieces, they make bad decisions, and they don't collect full points at home. But - BUT - despite all that, despite sitting in 11th place at the moment, they can still make the playoffs. And everybody knows that once you're in, anything is possible. more ›

Over the weekend, Chicagoland's own (and current Fire player) Brian McBride announced his retirement effective at the end of this season. Over 17 years, across major leagues including the English Premier League and MLS as well as multiple World Cup appearances for the US Mens National Team, McBride has proven to be one of the hardest working, most consistent U.S. players to hit the world stage. Taking bumps and bruises and coming up bloodied more times than we can count, McBride has never been afraid to throw his whole body into the game. We'll save our official retrospective of McBride's outstanding career for when he hangs his spikes up for good later this fall, but the below video compilation is a great way to celebrate one of the toughest men in soccer. (One downside to the video? The awful soundtrack. We suggest muting the video and playing this more appropriate song in another tab instead.) [via] more ›

Fire fans are thanking God their road trip is over. Going into Houston and Seattle (highlights above) is never easy, but giving up points the way they did - conceding late goals in 4-3 and 2-1 losses - is just devastating. more ›

Chicago's soccer fans may have a home team to root for, but finding places to congregate and catch the game (other than Toyota Park) can be a bit of task. Baseball, football, basketball and now even hockey fans have their pick of the city when it comes to finding fan-friendly bars showing their game of choice. Soccer die-hards don't have it quite as easy (though spots like The Globe Pub and the Small Bar franchise have carved out dedicated niches) when it comes to finding a bar to call their own, but Chicago Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas hopes that will change with the new soccer-centric sports pub, The Pitch. more ›

Ever since our season preview this spring, we've maintained that the Fire have enough talent to succeed this year. The issue was whether the talent, and first year coach Carlos de los Cobos, could harmonize to get the most as a team. With much hyped midseason moves that brought even more talent to the squad now behind us, the harmonizing question is more pressing than ever. The chemistry, the formation, and the starting lineup have all been tweaked in the weeks since the All-Star break, but, besides an explosive opening half in Los Angeles, nothing's really clicked. more ›

Well, that was sort of a bummer. Despite an amped crowd of 21,868 - the biggest in Toyota Park history - the Fire’s 0-0 tie against the New York Red Bulls last night failed to live up to its hype. Thanks to a combination of 90 degree heat, some rusty legs, and a lack of cohesion between new players and regulars, we didn’t get the explosion of quality we had hoped for. Still, there was a lot to learn from the game, both from a Fire and a MLS perspective. more ›

Say what you want, but this Sunday’s game between our Chicago Fire and the New York Red Bulls at Toyota Park (8 PM) is the most important game in Chicago Fire history. Yeah yeah, we’ve been in bigger games. The 1998 MLS Championship and runner-up showings in 2000 and 2003 come to mind, as do the 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2006 U.S. Open triumphs; then there are some of the more memorable friendlies (A.C. Milan visiting Soldier Field in 2005 especially). But Sunday night tops it all. more ›

We discussed Freddie Ljungberg, the Fire’s other major midseason addition, earlier today. more ›

Just as Chicago kisses so many pieces of the Stanley Cup champs goodbye, the Chicago Fire have added some serious firepower for the second half of the season in hopes of emulating the success of the Blackhawks and bringing home some silverware. With the addition of two designated players Fredrik "Freddie" Ljungberg and Nerry Castillo, they’ve suddenly become, on paper at least, a contender. Granted, Ljungberg is far, far past his prime and Castillo has had his own issues, but if coach Carlos de los Cobos can conjure a way to fit them in with the Brian Mcbride, Collins John, Baggio Husidic, Marco Pappa, and Patrick Nyarko offensive core we started the season with, the Fire have a real shot. Here’s some background on Ljungberg. We'll have a post on Castillo later today. more ›

The Fire continued to struggle with the non-MLS portion of their schedule as last night they got waxed 5-1 by Monarcas Morelia in SuperLiga group play. Having already gone 0-2 in the Sister Cities Cup, lost a friendly to AC Milan, and been knocked out of the U.S. Open Cup by USL Second Division Charleston Battery, last night's loss just added to the woes. Morelia got on the board in the fourth minute with an Elías Hernández goal and added two more before the half for a 3-0 lead at the break. Fire rookie Steven Kinney scored his first career goal, putting Chicago on the board in the 49th minute. But less than a minute later, Morelia answered with another goal and, in the 70th minute added another just for good measure. It was an all-around flat performance that lacked, well, the fire the team hasn't really shown all that often this season anyway, even if they have fared slightly better in MLS play (where they're 4-5-5 this season). The team will try to rebound when they welcome the New England Revolution to Toyota Park this Saturday night as SuperLiga play continues (6:00 p.m.). more ›

We at Chicagoist have nothing but love for our hometown MLS squad, the Fire, so we were positively geeked when they asked us to participate in the team's annual media game at Toyota Park Wednesday. Chicago media personalities, including folks from The Trib, The Sun-Times, Univision, Fox Chicago and WBBM, played alongside Chicago Fire staff for the abbreviated 40-minute friendly, with the Red and White teams competing for a mini cup that Fire Technical Director Frank Klopas jokingly assured us was "solid gold." more ›

Cubs Beat Pirates! Cubs Beat Pirates! more ›