Welcome to the Big Thing on Total Soccer Show, the show where we sink our teeth into a big and important topic in the beautiful game.

Today, we turn our attention to the Second City and the Chicago Fire.

The fire have enjoyed a storied history with an MLS Cup with multiple US Open Cups in the Trophy Cabinet, and they've

shown ambition over the years with star players who've included Ristos Deutschkoff, Bastien Schoenstein

Steiger, and current star D.P. Jerdin Shakiri, known in this parish as the Power Cube. But the

fire hasn't earned a playoff berth since 2017, and this season isn't off to the greatest start either.

Today we ask why their fortunes have changed in recent seasons, what kind of problems they faced,

and what the future holds. My name's Ryan Bailey, joining me today to Big Thing in Up. We've got

Taylor Rockwell. Hello, Taylor. Hello, I am nervous. Okay, don't be nervous. It's okay. We'll hold your hands the whole way.

This is another one of those episodes that could be a book or several books and also has

lots of passionate people who have written many things, talked about this at length. So it feels like if we

don't do this justice, we're going to hear about it. So I hope we do. I hope we do Chicago supporters.

Indeed, here to help us do justice, Joe Lowry. Hello, Joe. Hey, Ryan. I'm just glad that Paul Tenorio is too busy writing his book to listen and give us critical feedback on this episode. So at least we've got one Chicago media figure who like we can sort of push to the side and not worry about the feedback coming from him. Ryan, it's good to see you. It is indeed good to see you too. Joseph, should we just get out of the way at the start?

Deep down. sort of pushed to the side and not worry about the feedback coming from him. Ryan, it's good to see you. It is indeed good to see you too. Joseph. Should we just get out the way at the start? Deep dish pizza is trash, right? Yep. Never had it, but it looks gross. Good. I think if we wanted to upset any Chicago and Taylor, we've already done it in the first couple minutes. I mean, I'm already sort of like, you guys are laying it out for yourselves. It was, you make people drink malort, which tastes like floor cleaner, if floor cleaner were even more disgusting than it is. You call yourself the second city. You embrace deep dish pizza. I don't know. I just feel like there's some questions that I have for Chicago. Taylor, yeah. Taylor, have you, have you drank floor cleaner? Or? That was going to be my question. Hello? I have so many questions now. I'm just going to assume that the Lord tastes worse. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. All right. I am now less concerned for your well-being. Thank you. Okay. Taylor, I suppose my opening gambit here is why Chicago Fire? Why are we talking about then in particular? Why are they big thing worthy at this point?

There are other MLS teams who have middling to low ambition and who may not be on the right

track that their fans would hope they are on. So why the fire? For a couple different reasons.

The overarching one is basically just that it's a franchise that literally started as strong as you possibly can, winning MLS Cup, winning U.S. Open Cup in their first year, and had this potential to be an institution to be one of the huge teams in Major League soccer, and then that has fully fallen by the wayside.

And so looking at how that has

happened why that has happened and where they go from here i think is is a is a conversation

worth having i think also on a personal level whenever joe and i do mLS roundups or when goss is with

us like it feels like inevitably like i think my question for jo this week was basically like

chicago still bad like it just feels like a a lazy thing. I

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