Marked for Robert Lewandowski
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad30 Nov 2026
Andreas Hanche-Olsen and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Mauricio Pineda was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
The dugout16 Nov 2026
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Chicago Fire have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad16 Nov 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chicago Fire this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad16 Nov 2026
Words at Chicago Fire training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Anzor Mekvabishvili is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad16 Nov 2026
International break empties Chicago Fire
4 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Market16 Nov 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Chicago Fire know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout16 Nov 2026
Sam Rogers has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Chicago Fire will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market2 Nov 2026
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Chicago Fire hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Jack Elliott and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad2 Nov 2026
22 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Chicago Fire will explain it as a decision about the team, and it may well be one. A dressing room has never once read it that way.
Squad2 Nov 2026
Abraham Rodriguez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The dugout2 Nov 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chicago Fire this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market12 Oct 2026
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Paul Moore is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
Squad12 Oct 2026
4 Chicago Fire players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Abraham Rodriguez falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market12 Oct 2026
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Chicago Fire know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
The dugout12 Oct 2026
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad28 Sep 2026
A one-man rearguard from Chris Brady
There were 12 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad28 Sep 2026
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.44 at 38, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Squad28 Sep 2026
A season average of 7.44 with 14 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad28 Sep 2026
Philip Zinckernagel and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
The dugout28 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Player ratings28 Sep 2026
Chances created: 13. The column nobody reads carried the whole story of the match, and his name was at the top of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Chicago Fire this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Andreas Hanche-Olsen, and the manager let it.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
A test against the best for Chicago Fire
The team at the top of the table next, and the honest measure of where this side actually is. Anybody can beat the club below them; the question is what happens against Inter Miami CF.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Words at Chicago Fire training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Abraham Rodriguez is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Market21 Sep 2026
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Chris Brady’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
Looking ahead21 Sep 2026
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Noah Allen’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Chicago Fire needing him to play as if none of it matters.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Sam Rogers gets picked when it counts
Every manager keeps a short list in his head of the men he wants on the pitch when the stakes rise, and it is never published. The team sheets for the big afternoons say Sam Rogers is on it.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
He asked about his future and was given an answer with minutes in it. The manager has now made a promise in a building where promises are remembered, and the clock on it has started.
The dugout21 Sep 2026
Djé D'Avilla asks for a word with the manager
“I would rather say it to his face than read about it.” The meeting was requested by the player, which tells you most of what you need to know.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Two goals and a mark of 9.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the whole of the defence. 8 saves, several of them the kind nobody expects to see made, and ten outfield players who owe him a drink.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
A brace, and Philip Zinckernagel takes the afternoon — 8.35
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Philip Zinckernagel provided it, and the 8.35 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Market31 Aug 2026
Puebla come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Chicago Fire did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Jack Elliott and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad31 Aug 2026
Too much change too quickly at Chicago Fire
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
The dugout31 Aug 2026
“That is what I want every week. Not the result, the way they went about it.” The manager, after 4‑2, already talking about the next one.