As the Fire began their move back to Soldier Field last year, the Seattle Sounders were held up as a role model. Playing in a football stadium, the Sounders truly have made their arena a boisterous home,something the Fire hope to emulate when fans are allowed back in the stands.
The Sounders also are showing on the field why they are an example to mimic. And the Fire have a lot to do before catching up.
Trailing 2-0 to Minnesota United in Monday’s Western Conference final,the Sounders scored three goals in the last 20 minutes to win 3-2 and advance to Saturday’s MLS Cup at the Columbus Crew. Seattle will be trying for its third title in five seasons, this one after a remarkable comeback that forced the league’s top franchise to show its resolve and championship spine.
“We use mentality, it’s a catch phrase, it’s culture and all that,” Seattle coach Brian Schmetzer said Monday. “I’m telling you, in that locker room, it’s real.”
Now contrast that with the Fire.
Within touching distance of a playoff berth, the Fire went winless in their final six games to finish one spot out of the 10-team Eastern Conference playoffs. Over the summer, the Fire squandered a chance to advance in the MLS is Back tournament when they fell asleep after a lengthy weather delay and were eliminated by the Vancouver Whitecaps in their final group-stage match.
As the season waned, the Fire mentioned how the stop-start nature of the season due to the pandemic hurt them because of the changes they had made over the 2019-20 offseason.
“I think, for me as a first-year head coach with a new team, we had a lot of changes in winter. We basically started twice from zero, in January, February and then after the lockdown with the three-months break, where we had finally these five, six pieces here to integrate,” Fire coach Raphael Wicky said in October. “We started again, basically fresh in a very difficult stoppage, no friendly games, and it was difficult.”
Perhaps, but there’s an argument that getting three training camps(before the March 1 opener, MLS is Back and finally the August restart) should have helped the Fire mesh. They weren’t the only team to be disrupted by the pandemic, and two expansion teams playing their first season in the league made the Eastern Conference playoffs ahead of them.
Yet not everything should be pinned on the current Fire brass. Save for a few blips, the Fire generally haven’t been part of the bigger MLS conversation since the loss on penalties to Real Salt Lake in the 2009 Eastern Conference final.
That decade-long trajectory is what Wicky, sporting director Georg Heitz and owner Joe Mansueto must reverse. In Seattle, there’s a blueprint to copy, though after one season, it’s clear there’s still plenty left for the Fire to do.
