The First Post for Thethirdpost.com!
Welcome to “The Third Post” where I will focus primarily on the on-field performance of the Chicago Fire with some broader MLS and American Soccer coverage thrown in from time to time.
But first, I have to get a few confessions off my chest.
Confession #1 “It’s just the MLS”
Growing up as a soccer bro in the suburbs of Chicago I definitely took this attitude towards Major League Soccer. I was (and remain) much more concerned with the performance of Arsenal and what is happening in the top European leagues, than whatever was going on with the Chicago Fire or MLS. The reasons for this are many and I will get into them a little bit today, and I’m sure these unresolved MLS issues will rear their heads in future posts as well.
First off, I wasn’t raised in a soccer culture. Like many children of the 90’s I stumbled into youth soccer at a young age and fell in love with the game, but it wasn’t part of my family culture like “American” sports. So I grew up watching the Bulls, Bears, and Sox. My earliest sports viewing memory is when my family overstayed our welcome at my aunt and uncle’s house in Minneapolis because it was 1993 and the Chicago Bulls were playing a triple overtime game against the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals. This game is seared into my memory. It was the most important thing that had ever happened to me and nothing else mattered. All of my emotions were on the line.
Fast forward a few years to 1998 and another Chicago team was playing a final. I was older and even more sports aware. I played every sport I could. I wore a sports jersey of some kind almost daily, and without question soccer was my top sport of choice. So you would think that I would have been on the edge of my seat similar to any of the Bulls Finals games in the 90s, but the Bulls weren’t in this final, the Chicago Fire were, and I only watched the 1st Half. Then… I don’t know… I don’t remember. I think I went outside. It was just the MLS after all.
Confession #2: Soccer or Football?
As with so many American fans I love the English Premier League. It’s the first league that I was able to watch regularly when the games were broadcast on Fox Sports World. I was lucky enough to have friends with satellite TV and through their influence I became an Arsenal fan. The fact that they were consistently battling for the league title for an almost 10 year stretch definitely helped cement my fandom. But here was a team that made me feel all of the emotions, just like the Bulls or Bears, and even though my Arsenal fandom wasn’t passed down through generations, and they aren’t “in my blood” and all of those other metaphors, they became my team.
But even though there isn’t such a thing as a fake kind of fandom and I definitely care about Arsenal as much as any reasonable person can care about a professional sports team, there is always a part of me that feels insecure about it, like I have to have explain or provide justification for why I’m a fan of a team thousands of miles away who plays a “foreign” sport. I think this insecurity is felt by many American soccer fans, and it manifests itself in a few ways, spouting off facts, spewing phrases and terms that only sound right with an English accent, or saying football when around some “proper” (there’s one of those English terms) fans and soccer when you’re in a safer space. Or saying “it’s just the MLS” instead of emotionally investing in the local team.
Confession #3 USA! USA! USA! “I (don’t really) BELIEVE (but am very hopeful) THAT WE WILL WIN!”
“Have you heard there’s a 15 year old who just got a pre-assist in the Belgian Second Division?” Or, “did you know there’s a 17 year-old Arsenal youth team player who qualifies for US citizenship? He’s going to dominate the midfield for the USMNT for the next decade.”
I’ve definitely been guilty of sharing tidbits of knowledge like this before, usually to no one in particular, or to my only half-listening wife, who offers a slight nod in response. I can get a little over-hyped about the next big thing for the USMNT. I think that it’s because we were searching and hoping for a truly transcendent soccer superstar for so long, we became a little obsessive and maybe unrealistic. Thankfully, in the last several years players actually worth getting over-hyped about have started to emerge, and the fact that I don’t even have to list who they are says a lot. This is a really great sign for the growth of soccer in the US, and also a sign that maybe we are starting to get some things right on the youth development side. And maybe the next World Cup I will really be able to believe that we will win! (at least enough to make the quarters)
Okay, those are my soccer confessions, there are probably more but it’s a good start.
So why do I want to start a site focused mostly on the Chicago Fire?
I guess it’s my penance for all three confessions. I’ve since learned from my youthful indiscretions and I go out of my way to watch the Fire, but I still want more. It is still tough to be a fan of an MLS team in 2021. There just isn’t the same amount of coverage, or analysis around the game as there is with other sports leagues. Sometimes I have to go way into the depths of ESPN+ to even find the game stream. It’s usually tucked in somewhere between college lacrosse, and bowling. In contrast, after a Premier League match I can spend hours the next day reading hot takes, and analysis on a number of different sites. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the team and the league, and feel knowledgeable about all aspects of the game.
I’m hoping that this site can fill some of that analysis void that exists in my Fire fan experience. Hopefully it will do the same for some of you. The goal right now is to post an article each week focused on the Fire’s matches, and overall performance. What are they doing? Why do they play the way they do? Why do I feel like no lead is safe for them?
I’ve played soccer all of my life and granted I never reached the heights I always hoped for as a player, I’m at least confident enough in my knowledge of the game to ask the right questions, and throw my observations and opinions out there. Plus I have a journalism degree in the back of a closet somewhere that I want to put to good use. You can agree or disagree and have your own opinions, but hopefully though this site we can increase the noise (smoke? Maybe that’s a better metaphor) around the Fire and who knows one day the Fire playing a Final might be as big of a deal as the Bears or Bulls!
I’m really excited to give this a try and I hope you’ll join me on this journey through the MLS season. Please share this site with anyone and everyone you think might be interested, or possibly become interested. It’s not just the MLS anymore!
