{"id":406810,"date":"2025-11-26T20:59:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406810\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T20:59:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:59:13","slug":"chicago-fire-fc-roster-update-jack-elliott-option-exercised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/406810\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Fire FC roster update: Jack Elliott option exercised"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>After a strong first season under head coach and director of football Gregg Berhalter, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/chicago-fire-fc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chicago Fire FC<\/a> are poised to bring back most of their key contributors in 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/jack-elliott\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jack Elliott<\/a> had his contract option exercised after leading the team in minutes and serving as captain last season. The club did the same for midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/sam-williams\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sam Williams<\/a>, who was signed to a first-team deal from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlsnextpro.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">MLS NEXT Pro<\/a> affiliate Chicago Fire II during the 2025 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago declined contract options on forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/tom-barlow\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tom Barlow<\/a> and goalkeeper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/bryan-dowd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bryan Dowd<\/a>. Barlow will be eligible to enter MLS free agency, while Dowd is now eligible for selection in the 2025 Re-Entry Draft.<\/p>\n<p>Veteran defender <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/chase-gasper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chase Gasper<\/a> is out of contract and pursuing opportunities outside of soccer after the 2025 season. The club also declined a permanent transfer option for midfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/rominigue-kouame\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rominigue Kouam\u00e9<\/a>, who was on loan from C\u00e1diz. Decisions for players who are currently on loan will be announced at a later date.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of those departures, much of Chicago&#8217;s core remains under contract for 2026, including homegrown standouts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/chris-brady\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chris Brady<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/brian-gutierrez\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Brian Guti\u00e9rrez<\/a>, as well as star forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/hugo-cuypers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Hugo Cuypers<\/a> and 2025 MLS All-Star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/players\/philip-zinckernagel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Philip Zinckernagel<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago made their first Audi MLS Cup Playoffs appearance since 2017 this past season, finishing eighth in the Eastern Conference (15W-11L-8D; 53 points). Their 68 goals scored marked the second-highest total in MLS, behind only <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/inter-miami-cf\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Inter Miami CF<\/a> (81).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Contract options exercised (2)<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jack Elliott<\/li>\n<li>Sam Williams<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Contract options declined (2)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/clubs\/chicago-fire-fc\/roster\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chicago Fire FC roster<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlssoccer.com\/news\/who-s-in-who-s-out-every-mls-club-s-roster-updates-for-2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Updates for every team<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a strong first season under head coach and director of football Gregg Berhalter, Chicago Fire FC are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":406811,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,12420,5386,1818,53524,37638,41877],"class_list":{"0":"post-406810","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chicago-fire-fc","10":"tag-il","11":"tag-illinois","12":"tag-jack-elliott","13":"tag-sendtonews","14":"tag-transfer-tracker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115618013024575795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406810","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=406810"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406810\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}