What We Learned: Record crowd sees Fire draw Inter Miami

In front of a club-record crowd at Soldier Field, the Fire once again faced Lionel Messi and Inter Miami, and once again kept the Argentine from scoring a goal – though they did allow him to get on the box score when he assisted Miami’s only goal.

That goal was enough to keep the Fire from three points, as their undefeated streak continues but the club is now winless in their last five games across all competitions.

Here’s what we learned at a packed house by the lake last night.

You can’t beat the Fire (but they keep on finding ways to keep themselves from winning)

Look: We’re well into September and the Fire haven’t lost since July in league play. Since the start of August, they’re 6W-4D-1L in all competitions. That’s pretty good. If they were all league games, that’s a 2 PPG pace, which is great! Do that for the roughly one-third of a season that that represents and you’ll be doing in good shape unless you dug yourself in a massive hole with the other two-thirds.

Macro level, the issue is that the 6W came in a block at the start of August, and the 4D-1L came in a block since. The Fire have definitely cooled.

The bigger problem, though, is why and how: In the first of those draws, a partly rotated squad was slightly better than the Red Bulls. With the game sandwiched between games against Cruz Azul and Monterrey, the latter a must-win knockout in Leagues Cup, the result was fine, or more than fine. A point on the road is a good point, a point on the road while you’ve got one-and-a-half eyes on a game being played against a top regional opponent is better.

The Fire lost a close game to Monterrey, which isn’t great but which is a thing that can happen. In the two games after that, though, the Fire really tried the “point on a road is a good point” cliché by outplaying their opponents – the Fire controlled possession and had the better chances in both games – but couldn’t find a way to win. A silver lining was the Fire found ways to battle back from deficits in both games.

Last night, though, we saw something else: The Fire went ahead early off the kind of classic highlight-reel moment you expect from Robert Lewandowski, and then just sat back. That was not the game plan against Inter Miami. To put it mildly. 

Afterwards, Gregg predictably was less than thrilled about it, saying “I think we started lively, started really well, put them on their back foot, had a chance with Robin [Lod], and then got the goal with Robert. And then we got tentative. Give them credit for stepping up and putting more pressure on us, but we needed more bravery in those moments, and it took us a while to recover.” 

A point against Inter Miami may often feel like a happy point, but over the past few weeks, the Fire have gone from playing games like they deserve to win on the road them to sitting back against Inter Miami at home. That’s not movement in the right direction, and is a slide. 

It’s also not something that strategy or tactics can fix. As a result, the Fire’s next game is their second in a row against the team immediately above them in the standings after the Revs overtook them for third in the east.

Fire fans can more than hold their own

This is the third time since Messi’s arrival that there’s been a game on the schedule where it looks like he could be playing. It’s also the first time that it felt like a Chicago Fire home game based on the crowd, which, at 63,094, is another Fire record.

In 2023, in a game where Messi didn’t ultimately play, it felt like a mostly pro-Miami (or at least, pink-wearing, Messi-loving) crowd that the Fire did a good job of winning over through their 4-2 win. In 2024, it was widely known he wouldn’t be available ahead of the match. Last year, in his first time facing the Fire in Chicago, it still felt like Fire fans were outnumbered.

Last night, there was far less pink and even if there were plenty of Barcelona jerseys around, it was a mix of names on the back, including a healthy number with Lewandowski’s, and far more red and white Poland kits beyond that. It was the first time that it felt like the Fire had the support from the majority. Sitting next to me in the press box, Alex Calabrese remarked that it was probably 60% pro-Fire (if we throw in “pro-the-team-Lewy-is-on” into that), 20% neutral, and 20% Miami (or at least, Messi and friends).

Chants were largely pro-Fire, and when spatterings of “Messi, Messi’ came out from the crowd, they were booed down or drowned out. 

That shows the kind of progress that the team has made in multiple ways: Sporting success combined with the sales and marketing (if not yet entirely on-the-pitch) coup that signing Lewandowski represents have made Chicago one of a handful of big venues where Miami can come and be made to feel unwelcome during the game

It was certainly the first Fire game for many in attendance, and the first Fire game in a long time for many others. The trick is going to be keeping the fans coming back for other games, particularly those who came to see Lewandowski against Messi, rather than the other way around.

Gregg may have the solution. When asked what the team could take from this performance and use against New England on Sunday, he noted how good the crowd was last night, and said that one thing that’d help is  “getting some people to come back to the stadium, right? Because they had such a great experience.”He then turned towards the Polish media in the press conference and said that he “hopes that a lot of those Polish fans come on Sunday and celebrate it,” quipping “It’s free pierogi night at Soldier Field!” When one of the Polish reporters asked him “really?,” the Fire coach smirked and said “Well, it is now!” He then added that “you have to show your Polish passport to get the pierogi, though, that’s the only rule.) (MenInRed97 will be following up on this, Alan.)

We haven’t talked enough about Chris Brady

Do you like fun facts? Here’s one from Alex: 

Many of the Fire’s biggest discussion points this year have been around the attack: The switch to a 4-4-2 in the spring in anticipation of a striker pairing that never ended up playing together, the issues around chance creation and squad build. 

Even on defense, the discussion has almost entirely centered around the back line that plays in front of him: The emergence and later injury to Mbekezeli Mbokazi, the Fire’s depth (or lack thereof) at the center back position. 

As a result, we haven’t talked much about Chris Brady, who has been quietly, consistently very good for the Fire.  At just 22 years old, he’s already got 115 regular season starts in MLS, making him a stalwart. He’s on track to meet or exceed his career totals for clean sheets, while putting up strong passing numbers even as he’s been used more to launch long balls than previous years.

Despite his youth, he’s also long been a leader on and off the pitch for the team, and it’s no wonder that Mauricio Pochettino brought him to the World Cup so that he could experience the tournament ahead of moving up the USMNT depth chart between now and 2030.

He’s statistically in the top third of starting goalkeepers in the league, but is pulled down on some of those metrics in part because the team has been playing well enough in front of him that many of the things he’s best at – shotstopping in particular – haven’t been called on as much as they have for others in his position. (Including last night, the Fire have allowed 100 shots on target in 2026. Compare that to the 155 that Portland have allowed, and it’s easy to see why Pantemis is putting up some great numbers on American Soccer Analysis’s goals added metric.)

Last night, Miami sent 20 shots his way. Eight of those landed on target, including four from Lionel Messi and only one of those went in. 

Brady once again rose to the moment. Speaking to reporters after the match, he said “It's one of those games where everybody's got to be at their best. So I feel like I have to bring my absolute best against this team, and against their players,” before adding that he was “disappointed that we didn’t get the three points because this is a game where we could have gotten it.” 

The Fire netminder certainly did his part in that one.

That Noah Allen guy is pretty good, huh? 

We’ve now seen 135 minutes from Noah Allen in a Fire uniform, and he’s looked, well, pretty good! Playing against his former team days after joining from Inter Miami, you wondered if it might be a Noah Allen revenge game, and it was. 

In his first start with the Fire, Allen led the team in defensive contributions with 11, including seven clearances and three blocks – one of which may very well have denied Miami a moment of Messi magic at Brady (and the Fire’s) expense, and cleared a rebound that felt like it could have easily been a Miami goal.

Brady, who played with Allen when both were with the U.S. U-20 Youth National Team, called him a “hell of a player,” saying “his size might not show, but this guy plays center back like an animal.”

The funny thing about that? “I think that we don't need to clarify that's not his best position,” Berhalter said of Allen, who has often functioned as a left back. “He's such a smart soccer player. He can play fullback, he can play center back, he can probably play center mid if you ask him to. He's a really good player, and I thought he had an excellent game.”

Center back depth is an issue on many MLS squads, and with Joel Waterman gone and Mbokazi injured, it looked like it might well be an issue for the Fire. They’re still not in great shape in that department, but with the impending arrival of Andreas Hanche-Olsen and a possible return of Mbokazi next month, the team might have the depth they need right when they need it the most.

”We need more brave guys”

That’s something Berhalter said in his opening remarks to media after the game. He continued, “We need guys that want to get on the ball, that want to make the difference. And we need more movement when we have the ball.” 

That’s fair, and really would solve the issues we talked about in the first point of this one. But that’s not the only way the Fire need brave guys.

As the game ticked over into second-half stoppage time, there was a kerfuffle between Lewandowski and Miami’s Rodrigo De Paul.

It’s gotten some traction online.

On one hand, it’s great seeing Lewy getting into it and he seems more than capable of winning a battle of wits with De Paul. On the other, this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen players taking liberties with the Fire’s superstar player, and when it becomes a shoving match afterwards? 

I’m glad that Sergio Oregel Jr. and Puso Dithejane get in to defend their teammate. But both of them probably weigh less than the biggest tub of mayonnaise at the Costco across the street from the Fire’s performance center. Maybe combined.

I’m not going to read too much into this, and if Mbokazi was on the pitch, I feel like things might have landed differently. (And if Sam Williams was still around the first team, whatever you want to say about his game, I know things would ended differently.) 

It’s also a good thing that the Fire weren’t letting Miami under their skin (which was clearly the intention here): The Fire were on the front foot at that point, and it felt like if the game was going to wind up 2-1, there was a very good chance the Fire would’ve had a win at home. 

But it’s still not exactly the best response in the world from the squad, and is a reminder that as well as Lewandowski has been playing, and as much work as he’s done with his teammates in training (something several players have talked about, in public and private), he’s still new to the club and the team has yet to totally gel.

They’ll need to do that if they want to be one of the top teams in the league going into the postseason. Asked how close he thought the Fire are to that level, here’s what Brady had to say:  “Extremely close. All it's going to take is one game, one dominant performance for us to really start to believe that we are one of the best teams in this league, and we can show that on a week in, week out basis, but we're right there.”

The pieces are (mostly) there, but for that to happen, they need to come together.