{"id":325835,"date":"2025-10-23T06:49:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T06:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325835\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T06:49:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T06:49:19","slug":"chicago-fire-defeat-orlando-city-to-advance-in-mls-cup-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/325835\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Fire defeat Orlando City to advance in MLS Cup playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chicago Fire FC midfielder Brian Guti\u00e9rrez used to be one of the kids in the stands at SeatGeek Stadium, admiring the 2017 team \u2014 the last Fire team to reach the postseason<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2020 and Guti\u00e9rrez graduated from the Chicago Fire Academy to the first team as a 16-year-old. He\u2019s been on the Fire ever since.<\/p>\n

Playoff success eluded both him and the team until Wednesday. It was Guti\u00e9rrez, a Berwyn native, who got things started with his 10th goal of the season, setting the tone for a 3-1 win over Orlando City in the Eastern Conference wild-card game.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good emotion, an emotion that I\u2019ve been waiting for,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez said. \u201cIt was an incredible feeling because I was once in those stands. I always wanted to do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing it in person and living it was honestly incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win sends the Fire to the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, a best-of-three series against top-seeded Philadelphia Union. The Fire opens the round at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Subaru Park in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\n

Photos: Chicago Fire defeats Orlando City 3-1 in MLS wild-card game<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Fire dominated the run of play in the first half but was unable to dent the net. That all changed when Guti\u00e9rrez scored on a feed from Philip Zinckernagel and Jonathan Dean in the 48th minute to get the Fire on the board.<\/p>\n

The Fire\u2019s leading scorer, Hugo Cuypers, added a pair of goals.<\/p>\n

Guti\u00e9rrez has been in and out of the starting lineup for the past month and a half, but he just kept working.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really take it personally,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez said. \u201cIt\u2019s just working every day and delivering. Whether it\u2019s starting or off the bench, I want to show my qualities for the team and for the fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

First-year coach Gregg Berhalter has been impressed with how Guti\u00e9rrez stayed focused while his role has been in flux.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can think that a player will get dejected and lose motivation, but every time he came in he made an impact and he kept focused on being positive and kept training hard,\u201d Berhalter said. \u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s making the impact he is (Wednesday), because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guti\u00e9rrez was in the audience as a 14-year-old in 2017. He had plenty of conversations about his deep roots to the club when Berhalter took over as coach and director of football after last season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very important for him for the team to have a good year,\u201d Berhalter said. \u201cHe\u2019s focused on his personal goals, but he so badly wants this club to be successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChicagoChicago Fire fans Koraline Rodriguez, 8, and her sister Shelby, 3, cheer before the Fire\u2019s Eastern Conference wild-card playoff game against Orlando City at SeatGeek Stadium in Bridgeview on Oct. 22, 2025. (Chris Sweda\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

When Guti\u00e9rrez finally broke the ice, he went with his teammates right to the fans sitting where he once sat to share the moment with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re my people, coming from the same background,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez said. \u201cI do it for them. It\u2019s honestly a great connection that we have.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fire played well against Orlando City during the season, so Berhalter had a plan in place. The highest-scoring team in Fire history was going to put the pressure on early and often. The thought was that it would wear Orlando City down in the second half, which is exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

The Fire tied a season high and set a new club postseason record with 25 shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a little bit of an adjustment at halftime, trying to get behind them a little bit, trying to put them under pressure,\u201d Berhalter said. \u201cSecond half, we came out flying again. We knew we could have an effect on them cumulatively, that we wore them down.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuypers had two goals in the second half, but he and Guti\u00e9rrez had great connections in the first half that just didn\u2019t lead to points. He was happy to see Guti\u00e9rrez finally get his playoff moment.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Guti\u00e9rrez) is quality and those balls, the situation was not right to score in the first half,\u201d Cuypers said. \u201cFor him to get the goal got the whole team going, and we kept going.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Fire will be back on the pitch Sunday after having won their first playoff game since 2009. It\u2019s just another step to where Berhalter envisions the club going in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know it won\u2019t be done overnight, but we want to put a type of club on the field that all of Chicago can admire,\u201d Berhalter said. \u201cWe hope people come to the stadium to watch us play and we hope that it builds excitement across the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Chicago Tribune.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: October 23, 2025 at 12:21 AM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Fire FC midfielder Brian Guti\u00e9rrez used to be one of the kids in the stands at SeatGeek…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":325836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[89319,960,11222,162404,162405,53523,5386,1818,162403,80986],"class_list":{"0":"post-325835","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-brian-gutierrez","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-fire","11":"tag-eastern-conference-wild-card-game","12":"tag-gregg-berhalter","13":"tag-hugo-cuypers","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-illinois","16":"tag-orlando-city-fc","17":"tag-seatgeek-stadium"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115422153663713399","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}