Chris Brady: Chicago Fire rise, USMNT ambitions & Berhalter's impact | OneFootball

By Charles Boehm

Most teenage phenoms are eased into first-team action – set up to succeed with a gradual introduction to the rigors of top-flight soccer and daily competition against grown men, beginning as reserves or rotational pieces before earning a regular place in the XI.

The Philadelphia Union’s careful blooding of wunderkind Cavan Sullivan is one example. Red Bull New York were similarly conservative with their breakout star Julian Hall, who made his MLS debut three years before becoming a starter this season.

Goalkeepers don’t generally have that kind of luxury.

Just ask Chris Brady, who carries both FIFA World Cup and MLS Cup presented by Audi dreams as he leads Chicago Fire FC into TQL Stadium this weekend for a high-profile clash with Eastern Conference competitors FC Cincinnati in Matchday 8's Walmart Saturday Showdown (7:30 pm ET | Apple TV).

A highly-touted US youth national team standout in his adolescence, Brady had barely turned 16 when he signed his first homegrown deal six years ago. He found himself starting USL League One matches on loan at Forward Madison FC amid the COVID-19 pandemic just a few months later, and was still 19 when he earned Chicago’s No. 1 job in 2023. Those Fire teams he first backstopped were not particularly good, finishing 24th and 28th in the overall MLS standings, handing him plenty of hard lessons as the goals flew past him.

“When you're a teenage goalkeeper, you're not really in a position to be sort of boisterous and outgoing,” Brady explained to MLSsoccer.com earlier this month. “Because you feel like other guys are obviously relying on you and you have an incredible responsibility to not let people down … That sort of weighs on you.

“You also have this responsibility to yourself and to the traditional goalkeeper position, that you’ve got to be ultra confident and ultra outgoing and kind of fill this predetermined role.”

Forward progress

Now 22, Brady finally got a real taste of team success last season, as head coach and director of football Gregg Berhalter led the Men in Red back to the Audi MLS Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2017 in his first year at the helm.

It gave a tantalizing glimpse of what was possible for those in and around a proud club long since fallen on hard times, especially with the Fire breaking ground on a gorgeous new stadium project along the Chicago River just south of downtown, slated to open in 2028. As an academy product, it means a bit more to Brady, who lives near the project and drives past the construction site almost every day.

Yet 2025 imposed another batch of humbling moments as the Fire leaked 60 goals, the most of any playoff participants, while a high-powered attack made them neutrals’ favorites with game after game of open, flowing soccer.

“Gregg, in our offseason goal-setting meetings, made it clear that we want to tighten up,” Brady noted. “It was a great offensive season last year, but if we can tighten up on defense, we’ll be an unstoppable force and definitely make more than a deep playoff run.”

New look

The picture is drastically different today. With just five goals allowed in their first seven matches, Chicago now rank among the league’s defensive elite. Brady is posting clean sheets at more than twice the rate of his first three seasons; he’s notched four in 2026 after totaling 20 in his first 92 career MLS starts.

South African newcomer Mbekezeli Mbokazi has been a particular revelation in central defense, and Brady sees both individual and collective improvement across the board.

“We had the additions of Mbokazi, and then Joel [Waterman] through halfway last season,” he noted. “We got Chris Cupps coming up as a center back now that we can lean on, and we got Rado [Viktor Radojević] on the left, Leo [Barroso], who's healthy, on the right. Just a lot of experience and a lot of hunger in the back line.

“I've seen a lot of growth in the guys on the back line who were here last year, a lot of growth in myself and the goalkeeping corps.”

USMNT future

That’s helped fuel his own personal progression from MLS regular to aspiring US international.

While the pecking order ahead of him seems well-established in New York City FC’s Matt Freese and the New England Revolution's Matt Turner, Brady has climbed up the USMNT depth chart under Mauricio Pochettino and has a very real chance to make the 2026 World Cup squad as the No. 3 ‘keeper. Doing so would massively bolster his credentials as the Yanks’ shotstopper of the future.

The next few matchdays mark the final sprint to make a positive impression on the USMNT staff before the roster is released in late May. Saturday’s fixture carries a bit of extra weight in that Brady’s opposite number, fellow Chicagoland native Roman Celentano, is also in the running for a spot.

“Just treating every training session, every game, like it's my last,” Brady said of his approach to the national team, crediting the influence of US goalkeepers coach Toni Jiménez, a well-respected and tremendously experienced Spaniard.

“There's no shortage of intensity in our sessions. And to me, I think that's a great attribute to have, especially when I'm able to bring it back to my club environment and apply that to what we're doing here.”

Club-wide vision

Berhalter’s tutelage has also been key, not only because of his previous stint as USMNT boss but also his commitment to help Brady address weak spots in his toolkit.

“Definitely with the ball at my feet,” said Brady. “He's expected more from me and everybody in the goalkeeping corps to increase our understanding of what it takes to build out of the back, build up from the goalkeeper phase, and how to read pressure, move teams around, shift teams, draw out opponents, things like that, all with the ball at your feet.

“Those are things that I wasn't previously familiar with or even working on, because all I really knew was how to keep the ball out of the net in its simplest form. So there's understanding now, with Gregg coming in and his style of coaching, that there's so much more to the position of a goalkeeper. I'm happy my development’s sort of taken this direction.”

Brady feels he’s made massive gains via Berhalter’s extensive work to install an ambitious, possession-friendly game model. It also gives him and his colleagues a chance to build a skill set likely to be quite useful when they someday seek a next step in their careers overseas.

“The risk-vs.-reward comparison, what really helps is the amount of trust that Gregg relays to us, the amount of trust that he has in our abilities,” noted Brady. “He takes the approach – and I think this is other coaches as well now in the modern game, if you will, but they would rather you f--k up trying the right thing, than taking the easy way out and avoiding that risk. Because this is ultimately the soccer that he wants us to play, and he knows we're good enough to play it.”

It’s all made Brady more comfortable in his own skin, eager to embrace both the classic loose-cannon GK archetype and his responsibilities as a face of the franchise, a cornerstone of a club with – finally, after a decade of underachievement – real trophy aspirations.

“The last two years, really, I've been able to hone that unique personality a little bit more because the current goalkeeper room we have, and even with Gregg, he's allowed us to branch out, find our own styles of goalkeeping, but also apply that kind of unique personality to what we're doing on the field,” he said. “I'm now getting fired up over, like, the smallest things in training sessions. When you walk into a room, I feel like it's only natural for me to bring some sort of energy, whether that's shouting or welcoming whoever into the room, just little things like that.

“As a super young ‘keeper, I was always told that, but I never fully understood it until the last few years, when I'm going through these sorts of personality-development situations where I'm able to apply these new characteristics of mine to everyday life, to the training pitch, to games.”

World Cup dreams

Asked what a World Cup spot would mean to him, Brady grows quiet for a moment. He’s thinking back to his family’s sacrifices, to those long hours on training pitches around Chicago, toiling under the expert guidance of coaches like Fire goalkeeper coaches Zach Thornton and Igor Simov, a local legend who’s fostered a long line of goalkeeping talents like Gaga Slonina, now at Chelsea FC, and Austin FC’s Damian Las.

“It's a big thought. That's a big thought,” said Brady. “It would mean the world, just because everything that I have worked on my whole life led to that moment of getting that call,” he said. “It's crazy to even think about …. I don't really know how to describe what that emotion would be.

“There's a lot of opportunity to succeed at the goalkeeper position, if you really want to, and if you really put your heart and soul into the position from a young age, you're willing to work your ass off. And there's a lot of opportunity around this city to hone that skill set.”

Match Trailer | FC Cincinnati chase bounceback vs. Chicago Fire