Gregg Berhalter admitted that the Chicago Fire would learn a lot about itself after they had been beaten 7-2 by Nashville SC in their latest MLS meeting.
Berhalter watched while the four goals of Sam Surridge Nashville helped to a thunderous victory, so that the fire stayed in 11th place in the classification of the Eastern Conference.
Chicago returns to League Action this weekend and welcomes Orlando City SC in Soldier Field, where Berhalter is looking for a response from his players.
“The first is to apologize,” Berhalter said in his press conference after the game. “Apologies for the fans who have taken the time of their day to watch the competition.
“Some of them may travel to the game. Exologized to the owner for the preparation of such a performance.
“It does not represent who we are, it was a very bad performance and we deserved to lose the way we did.
“The way I look at this is that we will learn a lot about ourselves this week and part of it through the game, not just wash away.
“Responsibility for it as coaches, as players, and planning how we continue. But today was an absolute disaster and a very, very bad performance.”
Shake it off and her group. #cf97 pic.twitter.com/inj26xvhcz
– Chicago Fire FC (@Chicagofire) 27 April 2025
Orlando in the meantime rediscovered that winning feeling with a 3-0 win over Atlanta United previous time-out, which extended their undefeated competition run to seven games.
They also found their shooting boots, after they had passed three scoreless draws in their last three MLS competitions, results that descended them to seventh place in the Eastern Conference.
And Orlando -head coach Oscar Pareja believes that his team has found their “winning mode” and said that their attacking improvement should continue in the coming competitions.
“Well, first of all, back to the winning mode is healthy for us. We bound three games that were quite difficult, just playing away in Philadelphia and Montreal,” said Pareja.
“But also, the draw here against the New York Red Bulls, where we thought we were playing a good game. Against Atlanta United, the necessity had to win exclusively.
“We had to add and escalate three points, or at least keep the team in that place, and we did that work. But now, how we did it is what gives me the feeling that we keep progressing.
“We did it in a very solid way. We played well with the ball, and I thought we were patient with the way we are sequence.
“We found our spaces very good, and we also continued with dangerous plays, and we were just better. We saw what we wanted today, and that was that we scored.
“This happened before, but we didn't score, and now we score. Also, as I said before, we looked very solid. That will make our coaches quieter.”
Players to watch
Chicago Fire – Hugo Cuypers
Cuypers scored one of the two goals from Chicago on Saturday, his seventh of the season.
He is the third player in the fire history who scores seven times in the first 10 games of the team of a season (Nemanja Nikolic in 2017, Ante Razov in 2000, 2002 and 2003).
Orlando City – Marco Pasalic
Orlando has been in good shape this season, with only the Philadelphia Union and Nashville (both 19) scoring this period more goals than the Lions (18) in the Eastern Conference.
Pasalic leads the road for Orlando with five goals, although he is supported by colleague spiers Luis Muriel and Martin Ojeda.
In Pasalic (five), Muriel and Ojeda (both four), they are one of the two trios of teammates with four goals each this MLS season.
Match forecast: Orlando City Win
Orlando is unbeaten in seven straight matches against Chicago dating from 2021 and won five (D2). Only one of those victories came in Chicago, because the fire has only lost one of their last eight home games against the Lions (W3 D4) that date from 2016.
The Pareja team has also preserved four straight clean sheets for the first time in club history after their victory over Atlanta on Saturday. They had not held a shutout in their previous 11 regular season races prior to this run.
In the meantime, Chicago gave a club record seven goals in their defeat against Nashville previous time-out. The defeat margin of five goals was also the largest in the history of the fire.
Opta wins probability
Chicago Fire – 27.5%
Drawing – 24%
Orlando City – 48.5%