MIAMI — It was a little more than a year ago that Gregg Berhalter led the U.S. men’s national team to a historically disappointing Copa America run, becoming the first ever host-nation of the CONMBEBOL tournament to be eliminated in the group stage. The team’s two losses and one win prompted the U.S. Soccer Federation to fire Berhalter, forcing the coach’s second exit from the national team.

As #BerhalterOUT inundated social media, questions about his future in the game naturally began. With a resume that included head coaching stints with the USMNT, Columbus Crew and Hammarby in Sweden, many wondered what, if anything in the coaching realm, was next for him. And, less than four months after his firing, Chicago Fire FC announced Berhalter would become the club’s new head coach and director of football for the 2025 season.

It marked Berhalter’s return to MLS, the league where he won two titles as a player and, in doing so, he was undertaking the task of rebuilding a fallen franchise. The Fire had not qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs since the 2017 season and finished the 2024 campaign in last place of the Eastern Conference.

Berhalter quickly responded to the challenge, transforming the perennial contenders for the Wooden Spoon — the infamous, and unofficial, award for the worst overall record in the MLS regular season — to a team that clinched a 2025 MLS playoff spot with a thrilling 5-3 win over Inter Miami CF and Lionel Messi. Along the way, he has also set a Chicago Fire record for away performances.

Simultaneously, as the Chicago Fire makes history under Berhalter, the U.S. men’s national team continues to struggle under new manager Mauricio Pochettino, having fallen short in both the Gold Cup and the Nations League earlier this year. But Berhalter insists he feels no vindication in seeing the USMNT continue to descend while he reaches new heights with Chicago.

“No, because I never thought it was me,” Berhalter told ESPN. “It’s always a combination of forces. When you look at my record, you know, I think I’m the winningest coach of all time in U.S. soccer history. So, it’s not like I did a poor job.

“It was a young team and we qualified [for the 2022 World Cup], we did well at the World Cup and we were building. But I also understand decisions and I never took it personally. I never needed vindication. For me, it’s about wherever I go trying to be successful and doing my best.”

And he is doing just that with the Fire.

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Keller: USMNT haven’t improved under Pochettino

Kasey Keller says he can’t see any changes for the USMNT since Mauricio Pochettino has replaced Gregg Berhalter.

A team united in Chicago

Berhalter understood the challenges the Fire posed, but he saw potential in the team’s ownership and the city around him. Having lived in Chicago for six years while coaching the national team, the Fire’s new manager learned to listen to the city’s cry for MLS success and took on the “civic duty” of making that happen.

Despite low expectations, Berhalter faced immense pressure to perform. But instead of shying away from the emerging demands, he channeled his previous experiences in order to prevail.

“Pressure is something that I learned with the national team,” Berhalter said. “The stakes at the national team level are really, really high. When you’re coaching in a World Cup and you’re facing potential elimination, if you lose to England, you have to be able to deal with pressure.”

Before the season, Berhalter created a roadmap to success for the club that included a complete shift in staff and player culture. He hired new staff — including a director of performance and a head of strategy — and recruited players in the winter transfer window who fit into the new identity he wanted for the club.

Though the team previously chased after bigger names like Xherdan Shaqiri and Bastian Schweinsteiger to come in with international experience, Berhalter knew one star player could not reignite the flame of the Fire. Instead of a world-renowned Designated Player, he looked for players who embodied three characteristics Berhalter identified as key: growth, togetherness, and accountability. After working with the national team, Berhalter knew the importance of centering a team around the concept of camaraderie instead of one or headline players.

“Trying to help fit everyone into a team is something I learned from working with top talented players, working with bigger type egos,” said Berhalter.

In his director of football role, Berhalter is not willing to rule out to the arrival of an international sensation, but he would only consider the signing if the player fit the culture he is building.

“We are about the collective — it’s about how our 11 players plus the substitutes that come in can help the team play together. And that’s really the strength of our group. That’s what the whole playing system is now built around,” said Berhalter.

His concept of a collective fight was on full display with that impressive win in Miami to secure their postseason berth. Each of Chicago’s five goals in the 5-3 win was scored by a different player, with D’Avilla Djé, Jonathan Dean, Rominigue Kouamé, Justin Reynolds and Brian Gutiérrez, illustrating Berhalter’s main point: no single player can lead this team. That collective under Berhalter has the Fire standing second in the league for most goals scored with 66, behind only Messi’s Inter Miami (76).

Brian Gutiérrez has been with the Fire since 2020, and he says Berhalter’s approach is more than just talk.

“The most important thing he’s changed is culture, and having a bond with the entire team,” Gutiérrez said. “In recent times we didn’t have that comradery, and now it shows on the field.”

Getting ‘so mad’ and creating a ‘huge shift’

The Chicago Fire concluded 2024 in last place of the Eastern Conference table with just 30 points and seven wins in 34 games. But the season’s disappointments felt familiar, as the team failed again to crack the top 10 of the East — the last time they had done so was in 2019, when the East only had 12 teams. A team that once reached soaring heights — winning the 1998 MLS Cup and multiple U.S. Open Cups in the early 2000s — was nowhere to be found.

Decades of mediocrity plagued Chicago and seemed to extend to any player who arrived at the club. Though players wanted to win and improve, draws and loses especially during away games became an accepted norm, Chicago Fire player Andrew Gutman told ESPN.

“MLS is such a hard league, especially to play away, you know, with the travel and the time change in different climates. There’s a lot of variables that go into it, so the team sometimes just plays for draws away — for whatever reason, that was the mindset,” Gutman said.

Berhalter immediately saw the need to set higher expectations on every level on and off the field.

“We don’t want complacency,” said Berhalter. “No matter who you are, what age you are, you know, we believe you can still improve. So that’s a really important value of ours.”

The Fire kicked off 2025 with a 4-2 loss to the Columbus Crew before enjoying a five-game undefeated streak. The results began to mirror the team’s evolution under Berhalter, slowly approaching a form of consistency. But before the Berhalter could feel like he turned the page into a new chapter for the club, the game against the New York Red Bulls on April 5 at Sports Illustrated Stadium proved a stark reminder of the mediocrity he was trying to overcome.

Though Chicago took the lead early in New Jersey, the Red Bulls rallied to win 2-1. The normally cool-headed coach didn’t hold back, unloading his disappointment onto his players so they understood that the standards of the past were no longer acceptable.

“The one game in particular that I remember was the Red Bull game away from home, and that was one of the moments,” Berhalter told ESPN. “There’s been a few moments in the season where I go to the next level. I’m very even-keeled, but that was one of those moments.

“It was really about expectations because I was trying to communicate to the team about wherever we go, no matter where we go, we should have the expectation to win the game. And I didn’t like that game, it felt it was missing a little. Like we’re okay with two or one draws or a loss. And I was like, guys, ‘It’s not good enough. We can do so much more.’ And so that was a big moment in the group of saying that like, expectations need to be different.”

That game served as a turning point for the Fire, Gutman said. While players previously understood the coach’s philosophy about high expectations and the need for excellence, the defeat provided tangible evidence on the dangers of complacency.

“He was so mad at us because he knew that we were the better team, and he felt like we only lost because of our mentality,” Gutman said. “And so from that game, I felt like there was a huge shift in the players realizing, ‘OK, we’re going to go win, away or wherever it is, we don’t care.’ Every single away game, he always reinforces the fact that we’re here to win, we’re here to get three points. And if we don’t win, it’s unacceptable.”

After that game, the Fire rattled nine away victories this regular season — an all-time Fire record. Chicago’s 41 goals on the road leads the league for most goals scored in away games. With one regular season matchday left, the Fire sit behind only Cincinnati and San Diego (11 each) for the most away wins in MLS. In just one season, Berhalter has propelled Chicago to almost as many away victories as the team had in the previous three seasons combined.

Even when entering the game against Inter Miami at Chase Stadium and facing the likes of Messi, Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, Gutman told ESPN the team felt confident due to the confidence Berhalter instilled in them.

“We’re going to need to play Miami away to clinch a playoff spot — like, we didn’t really feel the pressure,” Gutman said afterward. “We almost felt like we should win this game. We felt like we were set up perfectly to do exactly what we did… I was like, ‘Why am I not feeling anxious or something that we’re about to kind of break this playoff streak, you know?’ But it was just like the day-to-day expectations that were put on us — like, ‘We got it.’ “

In just over a year with Berhalter as head coach and director of football, the transformation in Chicago is evident. Now the next challenge awaits: The MLS Cup playoffs.

The Fire have clinched at least a wildcard spot in the East, but depending how this weekend’s Decision Day plays out, the Fire could earn a bye to the first round. Despite struggles in recent years, expectations continue to soar for Chicago and the players are aiming for the MLS Cup.

“I knew it was going to change under Gregg — you could just see as soon as he walked in the room that we had finally got someone within the club that’s going to bring it back to where it was,” said Gutman.

Thanks to a new culture, shift in expectations and a collective mentality, Berhalter is driving Chicago towards a possible first MLS Cup since 1998.