For the second time over the past seven days, the Fire couldn’t keep 11 guys on the field. Last time, they were able to come from behind to seal a victory. This time, they weren’t able to hold onto a lead as they let a guaranteed spot in the postseason slip out of their hands.
Here’s what we learned on a cool windy night at Soldier Field.
It really helps having 11 men
On Saturday, the Fire were not playing like a team was going to walk away with three points, went down by a goal, then down by a man when Djé D’Avilla was sent off, then turned everything around.
After the come-from-behind victory, Maren Haile-Selassie said he thought the team played better with 10 men than they did with 11.
That wasn’t the case last night. Over the first 45 minutes, the Fire may not have exactly been running rampant, but they were possessing the ball well, and in more dangerous areas than the Union, and parlaying that into better chances (or near chances), while also limiting the Union in transition moments, still the team’s primary method of attack.
“In terms of the chances Philly had in the first half,” Gregg Berhalter said after the game, “they had very little. We didn't have many chances. They don't give up a lot of chances. It was a tight game, and that's how you expect an Eastern Conference game like that to be.”
It felt like it could be a “next goal wins” type game, where whichever team drew blood first might well have forced the other team to open up more, playing less compact and exposing them in transition moments, potentially turning a one-goal lead into a multi goal cushion.
Back to Berhalter: "But to get to that point in the first half, I think we competed well. We put our best foot forward; we scored the first goal, we're in a great position limiting them to not much offensively.”
Spoiler: That didn’t last. For the second time in a row, the Fire went into the tunnel down a man and this time, it was the opponent who came out ready to turn things around.
There were a lot of ways that the night might not have gone the Fire’s way: The Union’s attack, Cavan Sullivan in particular, were subdued but didn’t feel entirely contained in the first half, but there is a very good chance that they could have had their first home win against Philadelphia since 2024 if they’d kept all 11 guys.
The center-back group is about to be tested
With captain Jack Elliott out for the next two weeks and Sam Rogers likely to be unavailable as he returns from injury, we’re about to learn a lot more about the state of the Fire’s center-back group heading into the postseason.
Against the Revolution on Saturday, it’s likely that the three normal (if not exactly natural) center-backs available to the Fire will be Noah Allen (whose best position is left-back), Andreas Hanche-Olsen and Mbekezli Mbokazi.
Both Allen and Mbokazi have more or less exclusively played on the left, making Hanche-Olsen all but certain to get his first MLS start on Saturday against the Revolution. (The team could call up Jack Sandmeyer from Fire II, but with Elliott out two games and the potential of an injury to a center back on Saturday, are unlikely to use one of a limited number of short term agreements on him for that game.)
Coming on at half, Hanche-Olsen had his first serious minutes for the Fire and looked, well, fine: It’s really hard to establish a defender when you’ve only seen him when his team is short-handed, but he certainly didn’t look out of place in his first real minutes with the team.
After the game, he told us that he feels “very comfortable coming in and helping,” adding “It was good to get, for me personally, to get a full half,” calling it “what I need” as he likely steps into a starting role.
Certainly, the veteran Norwegian international with experience playing in Belgium and the Bundesliga has the profile of a player that can do well, but with the Fire’s captain out, he’s aware that he may have to be a leader on his new team, especially through the next few games.
“I see myself as a vocal guy on the pitch that likes to give instructions and talk with my teammates,” Hanche-Olsen said after the game, “especially when it comes to positioning, to help in that way. Definitely not going in there just to try to scream at people, but just trying to have people in the right positions. That's the goal, so that it's helpful.”
We may also learn more about Mbokazi’s level as he is still short from full fitness after returning from injury. He has been split-seconds slower on defensive plays, and even if he hasn’t been at fault for the goals, he also hasn’t been preventing them in the highlight-reel fashion that he was before getting hurt.
Something’s up with Gutman
Since he first joined the league in 2019, Andrew Gutman has been available for 183 games. He has appeared in 172 of those. Last year, he was an ironman for the Fire, starting in all 34 of the Fire’s regular-season matchups.
Coming into this season, the only time that Gutman was an unused substitute for consecutive games was in the 2021 season, when it happened four times. In that stretch, he didn’t play in the one game before and three games after being sidelined with a knee injury. That was also the longest stretch of games where he’s been available but did not start. When he’s been healthy, he’s played.
That’s all changed in recent weeks: Gutman has been an unused substitute for the past three games and been on the bench at kickoff for four, tying the longest run of non-starts with that injury-spanning 2021 when he was likely still dealing with an injury.
So, the question is, what gives?
When the question was put to Berhalter after last night’s game (in much more polite terms by CHGO’s Andrew Campbell), here’s what the Fire coach had to say: “We have competition in the squad. We have competition in the fullback positions. We opted for Noah [Allen] today. In the game, we thought that he would give us the advantage that we're looking for against Cavan Sullivan. It’s a long season, we have five games left. I'm sure Andrew will get an opportunity and then it's up to him to try to keep his place and stay on the field.”
Fair, as far as it goes, but the only part that’s really about Gutman – and not about the choice of Allen over Barroso, the starter in the previous two games, is the last sentence. And that sentence doesn’t Gregg say much that’d make me feel encouraged by the situation if I were in Gutman’s shoes.
Reading between the lines: Gutman was one of the best left-backs in the league last year, both by advanced stats as well as the eye test. A lot of that is because of his offensive production, including nine primary assists last year that made the Fire a much more complete attacking threat. He was also useful defensively, particularly with his ability to interrupt attacks.
What he was not – and really, has never been – is a great last-ditch defender. In 2025, that wasn’t of much consequence: The team wasn’t good at defending either way, and the way they won games was by pushing all the chips – including Gutman – forward, outgunning opponents.
This year, the offense hasn’t been as dominant, but the defending has been a lot better, particularly early on, when Mbokazi was one of the only center-backs in the league that would make it to highlight reels for defending.
Gutman’s last start came against Nashville, which, not coincidentally, is the last game that Mbokazi missed due to injury.
(I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the fire have started sending Jonathan Dean forward a lot more often in the weeks since, and tried advancing up the field through the right a lot more than they had been previously).
Since coming back, with Mbokazi not having quite the same speed that he did pre-injury, my thinking is that Berhalter has been looking for a fullback partner that is best at all the things that Gutman isn’t elite at, but which Noah Allen is.
Gutman, two months into a new deal that’ll see him here through the end of the 2028-2029 season, is here for the long haul. He’ll be back in the XI, but anyone who’s ever had a coach at any level knows when they’re saying “you’re not doing the thing I’m asking of you,” and it really looks like that’s what we’re seeing here.
