The Chicago Fire suffered defeat in their opening MLS match of 2025, but Brian Gutierrez walked away as one of the few bright spots.
Gutierrez recorded his first MLS brace in the Fire’s 4-2 road loss to the Columbus Crew on Saturday night. The attacking midfielder began the new year by making his U.S. men’s national team debut and continued his positive start by scoring his first MLS goals of the new season.
Gutierrez’s right-footed missile in the 13th minute opened the scoring from Lower.com Field before the 21-year-old scored five hole on Patrick Schulte nine minutes later.
His goals were the only ones for Chicago on the night, providing an early glimpse of Gutierrez’s long-term potential this season.
“Yeah, I mean, it was coming from deep; both, I played a through ball, and I came from deep and I made those runs into the box. Yeah, thankfully those two goals went in,” Gutierrez said about his goals.
“It’s an emotional group,” Berhalter said about Gutierrez postgame. “[Gutiérrez] cares a lot, and he wants to win soccer games. Sometimes young players lose emotional control, and you know, all players lose emotional control. For him, it’s about really understanding how good he can be and what’s going to fuel him. I think you see the goals that he scored, and how he can play, how he can work. He’s a tremendous player.”
Gutierrez has featured as both a midfielder and winger in the past but looks to be moving into a central role under the former USMNT boss. With Gutierrez scoring two goals in his first 90 minutes of the season, the shift by Berhalter looks to be paying off already, but the Fire ultimately need more to be a threat in the Eastern Conference.
There’s still 33 matches to go in the MLS season, and although Chicago wanted to get off on the right foot, Gutierrez is hopeful for what’s to come.
“I think it gets the best out of all of us,” Gutierrez said about his shift to midfield. “I think I’m more of a midfielder, and I think Gregg sees that, as well, and I think what we implemented and what we were practicing on. And I think we have those, you know, pacing wingers, and we can exploit them.
“And then us as a three, we want the ball in the midfield,” he added. “You know, just rotating as a three in the midfield, I think we’re just–we need to work on it more. And I think it’s like I said, it’s a long season, and I don’t think we need to dwell on this result.”
Good start for Guti.
Bamba looks like he will be a handful for MLS defenses, we know how much Gregg loves verticality. The Fire twice turned it over deep in their own end trying to play out that led to goals.
Yeah, those were gifts, though I’m still in awe of Wilfried Nancy…I mean, since January, the Crew have lost Aidan Morris, Cucho, Alex Matan, and Christian Ramirez, and replaced none of them…and there they are, still zipping the ball around like nothing’s changed. Obviously the Crew are going to miss the goals those guys provided…but it’s worth noting, heading into May, when European teams are looking to dump players and re-tool their rosters, the Crew will have two DP slots and $16.5 million in their war chest to play with from the sales of Cucho and Christian Ramirez. Which means if Nancy can just keep the Crew in the hunt – and of course he can – they’ll almost without question be able to bring in some truly impactful guys in June at a substantial discount, and at exactly the spots they need them.
Fans may not like it – they always want shiny new players coming into a new season – but the Crew front office is clearly playing the long game here, and taking full advantage of the fact that the MLS season is out of phase with the European calendar and you can sell high in January because so many teams on the bubble of European spots (or relegation) are looking for emergency help, and then have your pick of players on the cheap as the Euro teams break for summer. This almost certainly means the Crew can scoop up some really good players for free or minimal transfer fees and then outbid anybody except the truly big-boy Champions League-level European squads for those guys in terms of contract dollars. Money talks and the Crew are currently flush with it. So I’d expect some shiny new toys to come in June, which is probably the last thing the rest of MLS will want to see.
Losing Precourt was probably the best thing that ever happened to the Crew. This new ownership group and front office very much looks sharp so far.
Still early to tell how Issa Tall is going to be as GM. Last year we added Dejuan Jones, Herrera, Chambost, and AZ Jackson in the summer which certainly boosted the team but the team still ran out of gas. Making the final of CL and winning Leagues Cup took a lot out of a deeper roster, The Crew need a couple DPs but they also need to add depth either thru transfers or start playing some of the kids (Mrowka, Habroune, Adams?).
Will be interesting to see if Chase Adams can get some time this season. Looks like he could be a handful even at 16.
2tone: I think Adams might be a stretch this season. I could see them sending him on loan to USL somewhere like they did Mrokwa last year. It’s a big step from beating US Virgin Islands to beating Inter Miami.