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Heading eastward along the Eisenhower Expressway, he’s nearly impossible to miss. Five stories tall, wearing a distinctive pink jersey, no. 10 on the back, Lionel Messi is on a billboard as the latest installment of MLS’s tried-and-true tradition of using global stars of the game that the league has brought in during the last years of their careers as a marketing tool. This time, he’s there to advertise the Chicago Fire’s upcoming home game against Inter Miami. Opposite the literally larger-than-life Argentine star, however, isn’t a player from half a world away that fans recognize from exploits in past international tournaments, but rather Brian Gutiérrez, the 21-year-old Berwyn, Ill. native who came up through the Fire’s academy.
In addition to serving as a literal face of the franchise, Gutiérrez, who the Fire re-signed to a lucrative new deal after the 2023 season, is also a symbol of the club’s identity and philosophy of player development under owner Joe Mansueto. Even as the team has been willing to spend lavishly on player recruitment, bringing in Belgian striker Hugo Cuypers for a club-record transfer fee last year and adding French-born Jonathan Bamba this past offseason, it has placed an even greater emphasis on investing in the academy, creating a pipeline for children from around Chicagoland to make it to the first team.
Alongside global talents like Bamba and Cuypers, the Fire roster has 14 Chicago-area natives, 10 of whom developed their game in the Fire’s academy, as well as players like Chris Mueller and David Poreba, whose youth development happened at other elite-level clubs in the Chicago area (neither Mueller nor Poreba have been available to feature for the Fire so far this season). That’s just under half of the 31 players on the Fire roster, including Bryan Dowd, of Willow Springs, currently on loan to FC Tulsa, and 15-year-old Robert Turdean.
Turdean signed a first-team deal in January, with 16-year-old Christopher Cupps following a month later. They're the first players that have come through the entire pipeline, from academy to first team, entirely under Joe Mansueto's tenure as owner. Since assuming full control of the Fire in 2019, Mansueto has put a greater emphasis on – and considerably expanded the budget for – the academy. While some MLS teams fill their academies with prospects from a wide geographical area – San Diego FC’s facilities include a dormitory for academy players – the Chicago Fire’s academy is focused on recruiting talent from within Chicagoland.
The academy system, which starts with boys age 12 and under competing in the U-13 age group, is just the pinnacle of the Fire’s youth programs. “We have one of the largest, if not the largest, youth programs in MLS. We have 15,000 young kids in our youth programs throughout the city,” Mansueto said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Endeavor Health Performance Center last month. He continued, “We also have our PLAYs program with another thousand kids,” referring to the Participate, Learn, Achieve, Youth, Soccer (PLAYS) for 3rd through 5th graders run through the Fire foundation, noting that the team will also be running soccer clinics at Chicago Public Schools. “Most importantly, this is a civic project,” Mansueto said of his ownership of the team.
An integral part of that civic project is the academy, according to Fire Head Coach and Director of Football Gregg Berhalter.
“What we're trying to do is help unite Chicago,” Berhalter said at the team’s annual kickoff luncheon in February, “and we know how diverse Chicago is and there's nothing, no sport as diverse as soccer. So when you're able to produce homegrowns and they're able to get on the field for the first team and for the players and fans to be able to relate with those players is a huge step towards building a connection with the community.”
The importance of developing local talent permeates the team and predates Berhalter’s tenure. Last fall, then-Fire head coach Frank Klopas (who himself calls Chicago his hometown) had positive words to say about Berhalter, his effective replacement, saying, “I've always said it'd be great that one day we can lift a trophy with 70, 80 percent of the guys on the field being homegrown players.”
Homegrown Products Making an Expanded Mark This Season
While the Fire aren’t yet close to that aspirational goal, they did set a team record with five academy products in their Starting XI against Toronto FC on March 15th. In addition to Chris Brady, Brian Gutiérrez, and Andrew Gutman, a trio expected to start almost every game in which they’re fit and available, Sergio Oregel Jr. and Mauricio Pineda started in the midfield for the Fire.
Gutiérrez, Oregel, and Pineda made for an all-Chicago homegrown midfield (also a first for the team), whose performance was integral to the team’s 2-1 comeback victory on the day. That also marked just the second time in team history that the Fire have notched back-to-back, come-from-behind victories on the road. Even though the three local products hadn’t started together previously, they had obvious chemistry stemming from their friendship off the pitch.
“We're all super close, even off the field, so knowing all the talent that comes through Chicago and finally having us in the midfield to get the win today, it's amazing,” Oregel said after the win in Toronto. “We always play in the offseason together, us three. I think the connection off the field comes onto the field and shows how we all want to play around the ball, and yeah, I love playing with them.”
That’s a sentiment echoed by Pineda. “It's really fun. First of all, it makes it that much better, when your friends, your closest friends are playing next to you,” Pineda told MIR97 Media. “When we did realize that at one point that the three of us were in the midfield, that was a pretty cool moment for us.”
Connections between Fire players extend past the midfield. Hinsdale native Andrew Gutman came up through the Chicago Fire academy but started his professional career elsewhere before returning to his hometown club.
“I grew up in the academy with Mauricio (Pineda),” Gutman told MIR97 Media. “I think I was 14 when we joined and it's kind of crazy to be teammates with him now as full-grown adults. But the thing about Chicago is it's such a soccer city. I think the club has done a good job of finding those players and really cultivating them to potentially be professionals, and now with the amount of resources the club and the league has, it's even better for young players.”
Pineda Family Has A Legacy in the Academy
No player has more connections throughout the Fire than Pineda, currently the longest-tenured player on the team. He follows in a trail blazed by his older brother Victor, the first-ever homegrown player to sign with the club in 2010. The elder Pineda was with the team for four years, including time spent on loan, but never really cracked the first team lineup the way Mauricio, who has 104 starts and 131 appearances with the Fire, has.
Still, he helped pave the way for his younger brother and other homegrowns.
“I think when that happened,” Mauricio Pineda said, referring to his older brother signing with the Fire, “he kind of made me realize it was kind of possible for me, and for anyone from Chicago, because he did it. And he’s just my brother, you know? He’s just a guy from Chicago. So I think he really opened the door to all of us and gave us hope that it was possible for us, too.”
The Pineda family's contributions to the team don’t end with Mauricio, however: Their younger brother Oscar, 16 years old, is currently with the Fire Under-18s and made his Fire II debut last month. That gives Mauricio a unique perspective on the growth of the Fire’s academy, dating from the experiences of his older brother Victor in the late 2000s to his own experience in the 2010s and continuing through Oscar’s experiences today.
“The academy, I think it's just grown so much,” Mauricio Pineda said, “So many more resources for the players now. Obviously, good coaches and good staff. Good scouting, just helping all the Chicago talent be noticed and be brought into the Chicago Fire and, and at the end of the day, like bringing as many guys that we can to to play out on Soldier Field.” The new facilities help, with the team's new $100 million performance center providing facilities for the academy through the first team squad. "The goal," longtime Fire executive Paul Cadwell told MIR97 Media, " “is that it takes five years to get 150 yards down the building” from the academy to the first team facilities.
The Next Generation of Homegrowns
The group of homegrowns signed by the Fire during the 2025 offseason — Dylan Borso, Christopher Cupps, and Robert Turdean — form arguably the most exciting core since Brady, Gutiérrez, and Pineda were signed in 2020. The aforementioned Cupps and Turdean are two of the most exciting American prospects in their respective positions, and the former could be in line for an MLS debut against Miami on Sunday.
“(Christopher) is a guy that we really believe in,” Berhalter said this week. “It's really interesting to think about him playing in this game. Even if he fails in this game, it's a wonderful opportunity for him to be out there.”
Regardless, the degree to which Berhalter has been willing to give opportunities to young players has been impressive, and Cupps is just one example of a player who’s seized upon his chance. The 16-year-old had been brought into preseason camp by Berhalter in January and was so good that in just a few weeks, he earned an MLS contract and has now become a fully integrated member of the first team.
While Turdean didn’t have to prove himself in preseason in the same way Cupps did, his signing is also particularly meaningful. Turdean’s contract is historic; it’s the second-biggest homegrown contract in MLS history (behind only Philadelphia's Cavan Sullivan) and was the product of months of negotiations. The now-15-year-old had opportunities to jump to some of the biggest clubs in the world but instead opted to sign professionally with his hometown team.
"(Turdean’s) decision to choose the Fire over major European clubs speaks volumes about the environment we’re building and our commitment to developing local talent,” Berhalter said.
Fire fans will have to wait some time before they get to see Turdean playing with the first team. He’s yet to even debut for the second team, a breakthrough that could potentially come over the summer. Regardless, he’ll have the opportunity to shine this week at the Generation Adidas Cup in Florida, one of the world’s premier youth tournaments.
Turdean will feature for the Fire U-16s alongside a team loaded with exciting talents and youth national team regulars like Hugo Berg, James Field, Michael Gómez, Darris Hyte, David Molenda, Christopher Morales, J.J. Nemo, Roko Pehar, and new Fire II signing Brody Williams. Beyond just those in the first team, it’s clear that the Fire Academy is as strong as it has ever been – and there’s no sign of this trend stopping.
“Keep an eye on the Chicago Fire over the next 12 to 24 months,” Academy Technical Director Gary Lewis said earlier this year. “We’re going to be highly competitive from the top down, well organized, and going to be extremely proud of what we do.”
