The Chicago Fire is a Chicago area professional soccer club with offices in Bridgeview, Illinois, USA. It participates in Major League Soccer. The team was founded October 8, 1997 on the 126th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. In 1998, their first season in the league, the Fire won the MLS Cup as well as the U.S. Open Cup (the "double"). They have also won the 2000, 2003, and 2006 U.S. Open Cup. Their colors are red and white. While the Fire originally played at Soldier Field, the team now have their own stadium, Toyota Park at 71st and Harlem Avenue. Toyota Park is owned by the Village of Bridgeview and operated by the owners of the Fire, Andell Holdings.

The Chicago Fire has had a cooperative agreement with Monarcas Morelia, a Mexican First Division football club, since 2001. The partnership incorporates playing, coaching, and executive personnel, as well as sharing of business and development practices.

The club also has - through its reserves program, the Chicago Fire Premier amateur team playing in the Premier Development League, and the Chicago Fire Juniors youth teams - a substantial youth development system by American standards. It also has a charitable community entity, the FireWorks for Kids Foundation. The Fire also keeps a close connection with its predecessor team the Chicago Sting by holding frequent commemmorative events, reunions, and wearing Sting-inspired shirts. The team colors are red and white.


Founded October 8, 1997 in a ceremony on Navy Pier, the Chicago Fire Soccer Club immediately tapped into the ethnic makeup of its city, bringing in Polish players like Peter Nowak, Jerzy Podbrozny, and Roman Kosecki, Mexican Jorge Campos, and Czech Lubos Kubik. While all showed their talent while playing for Chicago (especially Nowak, the captain for 5 years) it was the young American players that overall proved most successful and integral to success continuing to this day. They won the "double" in 1998, beating DC United to take the MLS Cup, and a week later the Columbus Crew to win the U.S. Open Cup. They are the most successful club in the modern U.S. Open Cup, winning championships in 1998, 2000, 2003, and 2006.

The club's first head coach, Bob Bradley, suddenly and unexpectedly left after the 2002 season to lead the MetroStars, the club from his home state. After an extensive search the team selected Dave Sarachan, the top assistant on the US national team, to lead. Chicago qualified for the 2003 league final, after a season that saw them resettle at Soldier Field after being forced to play in west suburban Naperville, Illinois while the stadium underwent massive renovations. Despite this, they amassed the best record in the league and captured the 2003 MLS Supporters' Shield, awarded for the regular season's best record. 2003 also saw team captain Peter Nowak retire and take a position in the front office, only to depart a year later to become coach at DC United. In 2006, the club moved into a brand new purpose-built 20,000 capacity stadium at the corner of 71st Street and Harlem Avenue in Bridgeview, on the southwest side of Chicago..


Club logo and colors

The Chicago Fire logo is derived from the standard style of a Fire Department's crest (also shown by the Chicago Fire Department). The shape is also known as a Florian's cross, often confused with the Maltese cross, and was picked in part due to the wishes of original GM Peter Wilt to create an image that was both as timeless as those of the NHL Original Six and evocative of European soccer. There is a stylized 'C' in the center representing Chicago, similar to the logos of the Bears and Cubs. The six star points around the center reference the four six-pointed stars in the municipal flag of the City of Chicago. The four stars in the city's flag represent the four monumental events in the history of the city, the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, the 1893 World's Fair, the 1933 World's Fair, and the Fort Dearborn Massacre.

The original Fire shirts in 1998 were chosen because of their resemblance to a Chicago fireman's coat, featuring broad horizontal stripes across the torso and sleeves. The home jerseys were rendered in red and white with "FIRE" in silver on the front; the away shirts were white and black in this same style. Over the years the look has become more stylized but the core idea of the home shirts being all-red with a white horizontal chest stripe has remained constant, even though the uniform manufacturer has changed from Nike in 1998, to Puma in 2003, and then adidas in 2006. Away/secondary shirts have changed over the years from the aforementioned white/black in 1998, to white/navy, and the white/red style currently used. In 2005 a popular light blue-colored third shirt based on the Municipal Flag of Chicago was worn but discontinued during the change in manufacturer to adidas.