Chicago Fire have sources have confirmed to MenInRed97 that striker Hugo Cuypers is being sold to CF Monterey. The move comes in the wake of the arrival of Robert Lewandowski to the Fire and sends the current MLS Golden Boot leader (13 goals) to the Liga MX giants.
The transfer opens up a Designated Player (DP) and international slot for the Chicago Fire, helping to ease an acute crunch in the Fire's roster. It also clears the way for the team to make another major signing this summer, with rumors of the Fire's pursuit of German international midfielder Leon Goretzka continuing to swirl.
The move to a deep-pocketed Rayados team helps maximize the Fire's return on the 29-year-old, who has had banner season with the Fire. Cuypers joins Uruguayan Diego Rossi as the second player to move to the storied Mexican side from MLS this summer, and comes as Rayados look to fortify the squad that had a disappointing 2025-2026 Clausura, with the team finishing in 13th place.
Cuypers' departure is not without risks, however: The transfer leaves the Fire without a proven backup to Lewandowski. Nominally behind Poland's all-time leading scorer in the Fire's depth chart are 23-year old Jason Shokalook, who no goals and three assists in 52 minutes with the Fire first team, and 20-year-old Dean Boltz, who has yet to make his MLS debut.
Hugo Cuypers arrived to the Fire ahead of the 2024 season, finally giving the Chicago Fire a reliable, high-end goalscorer at the position that the team had lacked since the departure of Nemanja Nikolić in 2019. Despite team struggles on the pitch, the Belgian netted a team-best 10 goals in his first year in Chicago, becoming the team's first player to get a double digit tally since Robert Berić in 2020.
In 2025, he was once again the team's leading goalscorer – but this time, scoring 17 regular-season goals on a much stronger Fire squad that made the postseason for the first time since 2017.
This season, he was on pace to handily eclipse that total, scoring 13 goals in just 989 minutes. The Belgian international likely could have had more: When the Fire FC Cincinnati in April, Cuypers, then on a first-half brace, allowed Philip Zinckernagel to take a penalty in his place. The move gave his teammate, then in somewhat of a scoring rut, a goal but denied Cuypers a glorious opportunity at his first-ever MLS hat trick. With Cuypers now headed to Mexico, that hat trick is unlikely to come anytime soon.
Fire Head Coach Gregg Berhalter had previously flirted with the idea of playing with two strikers. In several games in the first half of the season, the Fire used a nominal 4-4-2 shape, usually using midfielders or wingers as a second striker to pair Cuypers. As recently as last week, Berhalter insisted that he was prepared to play a two-striker shape, reiterating on Tuesday that Lewandowski and Cuypers would be very capable of playing together from the start.
While the move happened very suddenly, the Fire are getting their money's worth for the top in-form striker in MLS. Cuypers was sold for a reported fee of about $7.5 million US, plus potential add-ons, making him the third most expensive sale in club history behind Jhon Durán and Gaga Slonina. Cuypers also departs as the fourth-highest goalscorer in the Fire's history, with his 44 goals exactly half of what all-time goals leader Ante Razov scored for the club.
