Chicago Fire FC’s Jason Shokalook Opens Up On His Transformational 2025 | OneFootball

We catch up with newly-signed Chicago Fire forward Jason Shokalook to look back at his journey to the pros, from 100-mile commutes as a kid, to signing his first team contract after a breakout season in MLS NEXT Pro. 

It’s a cold December morning in Illinois, and Jason Shokalook is straining every facial muscle in his body to keep himself from emanating a mile-wide grin. All his life, he’s been taught to stay humble and keep his head down, to focus on the journey and not the destination, to never be satisfied with just good enough. At 23 years of age, he knows that there will be plenty of twists and turns in his journey, and he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself just yet.

But he can’t help it: he’s dying to let out a smile that could light up the entire Chicago skyline. After all, his life is about to change forever. In just a matter of days, MLS side Chicago Fire will announce that Shokalook has signed a contract through the 2026 season with club options for 2027 and 2028.

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“It’s a massive, opportunity for me to try and become an established player in MLS,” Shokalook said. “That’s something that I’m really, really striving for, and for which I’m super grateful. I got a ton of opportunities to train with the first team this past year where I was growing and becoming a better player by training with them and getting coached by Gregg Berhalter and his assistants. I think that that was an amazing opportunity for me, so coming into this new year, I think that’s something that I definitely want to push towards: become an established player who’s on the roster, who’s making an impact in games, and who’s helping the team win games.”

Shokalook was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, where he was forced to endure constant travel in order to pursue his sporting objectives. Every Monday and Wednesday, Shokalook would get picked up from school by one of his parents, who would then drive him over two-and-a-half hours each way to Pittsburgh so that he could play hockey, and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, they crossed state lines for the two-plus hour drive to Cleveland so that he could play soccer.

After two years of balancing both sports and arduous travel itineraries, Shokalook decided to focus completely in becoming a professional soccer player, spending the near-entirety of his teenage years commuting to Cleveland before finally getting a scholarship offer from the University of Akron.

“The University of Akron is an amazing school, and the soccer program is an elite program,” Shokalook said. “You can look at the names of how many professional players they produce like DeAndre Yedlin, you can look at the coaching staff of Jared Embick, Michael Nanchoff, Jared Coppinger, Attila Schmidt, all of these guys are top coaches. Going into that environment was very exciting for me. I wanted to go in and prove to myself from day one that I belong there.”

Shokalook broke onto the scene during his junior year with nine goals in 18 appearances before doing even better in his senior year with 14 goals and 5 assists in 17 matches in 2023, good enough to earn a second-team All-American nod and Big East offensive player of the year honors.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Chicago Fire FC II (@chicagofirefcii)

It’s why, after being just one of 44 players to earn an invitation to the adidas MLS College Showcase in Phoenix, an annual closed-door scouting event, Shokalook was informed that he had been selected by Chicago Fire with the 35th pick of the draft.

“I had all of my close family, my friends, everyone who’s kind of supported me around me, and to hear the words ‘You just got drafted to Chicago Fire,’ I just broke down,” said Shokalook in an interview with RG. “At that moment, all of the flashbacks come back to you, all of the sacrifices that you made, all of the hard work that no one sees. All of that comes into your mind, and honestly, it was a very emotional moment for me.”

Initially assigned to the reserves in MLS NEXT Pro, Shokalook had a slow start to life in Chicago. Languishing in the shadow of MLS NEXT Pro Golden Boot winner David Poreba, Shokalook racked up just three goals and three assists in 27 appearances across the 2024 season.

At first, it looked like Shokalook could be on course for a repeat of his three-goal season with the Fire II in 2025, missing the season opener and coming off the bench for the next three matches. He had a discussion with new manager Mike Matkovich, who agreed to give him a chance, entering him in the starting XI in a May 2 match against Orlando City SC’s reserves.

Shokalook earned his manager’s trust by scoring the go-ahead goal in a comeback 5-1 win, before grabbing a goal contribution in each of his next four. This earned him a maiden first-team call-up, with Shokalook coming on for the final 15 minutes and assisting the last goal in a 7-1 win at DC United. He remained on the bench for the following match against Nashville before returning to the reserves for the rest of the season.

The added boost in confidence did wonders for Shokalook, and he finished the 2025 MLS NEXT Pro season as the Golden Boot winner, and was a finalist for the league’s MVP award. Most importantly however, he secured a first-team contract ahead of 2026.

Urban Pitch caught up with Shokalook about his meteoric 2025 and his main objectives.

  View this post on Instagram   A post shared by Jason Shokalook (@jason_shokalook)

You’ve got a lot of interesting lines on your Instagram. I want to mention one: “The pain you go through is the breaking of your shell that encloses your understanding.” Talk to me a little bit about that. Has that been something that you’ve kind of adapted and took to your game, realizing that that pain is just weakness leaving the body, and you’ve got to go through pain in order to be stronger? 

I think that as a player, you can go through pain in multiple ways. Not playing and sitting on the bench and watching your team play when you think that you can help can create some fire inside of you. But also, just those times when you don’t want to do that extra rep, or you feel like you’re too tired, and you push through, then I think that in my words, and what I’m trying to explain, is that in your mind, there’s an enclosing that you don’t think that you can get through, and once you get through that, then your understanding of what you can do is totally gone.

I realized this when I pushed myself to these limits that I didn’t think that I could get to. If I can get to that limit, then I can really, really push myself, and I can achieve great things, you know? That’s kind of the philosophy and the psychological things that I try and test my mind with and think about. If you can really push through these tough moments in life like anyone goes through, and then do a little bit more, then I think that you’ll reap the benefits and that’s a special thing.

What are your main goals for 2026?

Honestly, Zach, I said this to a guy who was asking me the same question at the beginning of 2025, and I really like to keep the goals personal to myself. Respectfully, I like to just have my own focus on them, and I don’t really like to put them out there like that.

Lastly, if you could rewind the clock back a decade and talk to that little Jason Shokalook who was making all of those long drives to Cleveland and other places, what would you say to him?

I would say to that little kid who was making those sacrifices… the best advice that I would give him is that it’s not the view at the top of the mountain, it’s the climb. It’s amazing to sign a first-team contract, but I think that the best part about it all was the lead-up to get there. The struggle, the sacrifice, the hard times, the good times, everything that led up to get there. I would say to keep that in mind to the younger Jason…knowing all of the sacrifices and all of the things that I had to do to get here most definitely makes it worth it.