Chicago Fire & Gregg Berhalter not satisfied: "You’ve got to do it again" | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

When Gregg Berhalter was hired by the Columbus Crew in 2013, one of his first moves sent a striking message to players and staff.

It wasn’t a trade, transfer or tactical shift, but a literal act of remodeling, shrinking the proverbial corner office to upgrade one of the team’s collective spaces.

“He gave up his office at our training facility to make the gym bigger,” former Crew midfielder Justin Meram explained to MLSsoccer.com two years later. “His office is the smallest room in that building. He knew what was important.

“The last two years have been the best years of my career, and it’s no coincidence that it’s with Gregg.”

Matchday 3’s Walmart Saturday Showdown between the Crew and Chicago Fire FC is a clash of Eastern Conference contenders, and a meeting of two of the most attack-minded, entertaining sides in MLS. It’s also a Gregg Berhalter derby (7:30 pm ET | Apple TV).

Match Trailer | Columbus Crew square off with Chicago Fire

Berhalter's first rebuild

Before he became a household name as the coach who rebuilt the US men’s national team following the agony of the 2018 FIFA World Cup cycle, Berhalter led Columbus for five years.

With limited resources, through periods of adversity and profound change around the organization, most notably a possible relocation saga during his final two seasons, he guided the Yellow Football Team to the 2015 MLS Cup final, played some of the league’s most attractive soccer and finished with an overall record of 74W-70L-49W.

Today, the Crew play in a glittering downtown stadium, ScottsMiracle-Gro Field, train at OhioHealth Performance Center, a state-of-the-art facility built on the site of their previous home, Historic Crew Stadium, and have stacked two MLS Cups and a Leagues Cup title in their trophy case since his departure. When heroes like Cucho Hernández, Wilfried Nancy and Darlington Nagbe move on, the faithful expect reloads, not rebuilds.

The Crew have become a model MLS club under the ownership group led by the Haslam family and former team physician Dr. Pete Edwards. That’s just the sort of reinvention Berhalter is now spearheading in Chicago, where he’s both head coach and director of football, working with owner Joe Mansueto to revitalize the Fire on the pitch and in the community after more than a decade of underachievement.

“Every day I wake up and I'm excited and I'm full of energy, because it's a great project,” Berhalter told MLSsoccer.com during the Fire’s preseason camp in Indian Wells, California. “Not just the first team; we're talking about the second team, the academy, the whole sporting side of the organization. I remember when I first started at Columbus, the sporting side of the organization was like 20 people, and now we're 90 deep.

“I mean, it's crazy how each group has grown. All the academies have coaches, assistant coaches, performance directors, strength and conditioning coaches, and second team, first team, the level of detail now, it's just gone up so many different levels. It's just fun to be a part of.”

Rebuild: The sequel

Berhalter has done his part so far, ending the Men in Red’s seven-year Audi MLS Cup Playoffs exile in his first season (then snapping an even longer postseason victory drought) via a fun, possession-oriented style. He fashioned the Fire into an expansive, entertaining side who scored the second-most goals in MLS in 2025 (68), while also finishing among the bottom seven in goals conceded (60), hinting at the vulnerability that accompanied the verve.

Improved solidity would seem a priority, with top South African prospect Mbekezeli Mbokazi signed via the U22 initiative to bolster central defense and Anton Salétros arriving from Sweden as an engine-room reinforcement. The coach tends to take a holistic outlook, though.

“We felt like a foundation has been built in year one; there's a lot of continuity with last year's team as we move into this year, and we're trying to build on that,” Berhalter explained. “That's the name of the game for us. We know there's plenty of room for improvement, and it's somewhat personnel-related, somewhat some style-of-play stuff, and we're just looking at those issues and trying to get better.

“I think the attacking group is talented; we seem well-balanced this year.”

While frontrunner Hugo Cuypers led the team in scoring for a second straight year, winger Philip Zinckernagel was a surprise smash hit, becoming the first player in Fire history to record 15g/15a in a season and setting new club records for assists and goal contributions.

The All-Star Dane’s output dramatically outpaced his underlying numbers in both categories, leading some to wonder whether he’s due for a regression towards the mean in ‘26. Not Berhalter.

“I think when you have guys that can shoot from distance, usually their goals don't match up with their xG [expected goals]. That’s just the nature of it,” contended the coach. “You look at Messi: He always scores more than his xG, right?”

That’s elite company, but Zinckernagel’s coach doesn’t hesitate to place the Bodø/Glimt and Club Brugge alumnus there.

“It’s guys that generally have been playing in Europe and can shoot really well,” continued Berhalter. “When you can shoot really well, and you can put the ball on target, you score goals that you really aren't expected to score. And Phil scored a number of them last year.

“You know, shooters shoot from outside the penalty box. But he can finish with both feet, he’s very good, very calm inside the penalty box, deceptively fast. He's one of our top three fastest players, good 1v1 – he has everything. It's no surprise that he's played at a high level for a long time.”

A new home

There’s also a very literal construction process underway in Chicago. Upon acquiring the Fire in 2019, Mansueto’s first major move was negotiating a reported $65.5 million lease buyout at SeatGeek Stadium in suburban Bridgeview in order to return to the iconic, and more central, setting of Soldier Field.

Next, somewhere in the vicinity of $100 million was invested in the Endeavor Health Performance Center, a state-of-the-art training ground which opened on the Near East Side in 2024. Then focus turned to the long-term vision of a soccer-specific downtown home of their own.

Last week, Mansueto & Co. broke ground on that project at The 78, a new mixed-use development along the Chicago River in the South Loop neighborhood. The 22,000-seat, privately-funded $750 million facility is the Windy City's first new pro sports stadium in three decades, and figures to be one of MLS’s leading venues when it opens in 2028.

It speaks to Mansueto’s commitment that he was on site for much of the Fire’s preseason swing through the Coachella Valley Invitational, taking meetings on the back patio of the team hotel just like other members of the front office.

“He's one of the guys,” said Berhalter. “He’s such an amazing person to work for, because he's so humble, so giving, so supportive. And part of it, what we're trying to do is build a world-class club for the city of Chicago. But the other side of it is to do well for him, because he's so supportive and he is really invested in the project.

“When we talk about how do we get better, whether that's personnel, facilities, he's always willing to step up. He's always there to listen. He's there to really help build this club strong.”

Under Mansueto, the Fire have been linked to potential superstar signings like Neymar Jr. and Robert Lewandowski, and could swing big in this summer’s transfer market. Will the squad be ready for a capstone addition of that magnitude, perhaps one of the World Cup’s standouts? That will be Berhalter’s decision to make.

“If it means bringing in someone with a big name, it would have to be someone that we think can really help us on the field as well,” he cautioned. “We're not about just trying to get a name. We want someone that can help us win.”

Just the beginning

The new stadium projects to be a watershed moment for both the Fire and their city. In the meantime, Berhalter sees plenty left to do on and off the pitch.

The Men in Red aim to draw more spectators out to Soldier Field, where attendance numbers have ticked upwards year over year, and improve the pipeline by which the Fire identify and nurture homegrowns from Chicagoland’s huge pool of youth talent, the likes of Brian Gutiérrez, the playmaker who moved to Chivas Guadalajara over the winter for a reported $5 million fee.

“It's really about building that foundation that we talked about, from top to bottom within the club,” said Berhalter, “really getting the academy right and starting to continue to develop local talent, get the first team right, turn it into a team that can consistently compete.

“We did it one year. That's great. But you’ve got to do it again and again and again, so there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. And I think if we do it right, we get to the stadium at a great moment where the team is prepared, the club represents something strong, and we'll be able to ignite a strong fan base.”