Chicago Fire came into the second half of August looking like a team that had things figured out. Three straight wins: 2-1 over Cruz Azul, 2-1 over Portland Timbers, and 2-1 over Orlando City had the club sitting at an impressive 60.0% win rate on the season, securing 12 victories through 20 matches. Since then, the wins have simply stopped coming.
The last six matches have produced four draws and two losses, and the win rate over that stretch sits at 0.0%. That is a massive 60.0 percentage point drop from their pre-streak average, pulling their overall season win rate down to 46.2%.
The skid technically starts right after that Orlando City win on August 19. Chicago went to New York and drew the Red Bulls 1-1 on August 22. Four days later in Mexico, they dropped a 2-1 decision to Monterrey, followed by a stretch of high-scoring draws.
A 2-2 result at Seattle on August 29, a wild 4-4 draw at Toronto FC on September 5, and a 1-1 draw at home against Inter Miami on September 10 seemed to suggest the team was at least grinding out points. But a 2-1 loss to the New England Revolution at Soldier Field this past weekend finally compounded the frustration. The Toronto game alone tells you something about where this team's issues are because four goals scored is not a bad output. However, conceding four means whatever defensive stability existed earlier in the year isn't showing up right now.
Looking at the six results in total, Chicago has scored in every single match during this stretch. That's worth noting because it means the attack hasn't disappeared. The issue is on the other end of the field. Across these six games, Chicago has allowed 1, 2, 2, 4, 1, and 2 goals.
What's changed?
We know that four of these six winless matches came on the road: at New York, at Monterrey, at Seattle, and at Toronto. While road form clearly initiated this slide, consecutive winless matches back at Soldier Field against Inter Miami and New England prove the issues have followed them home.
The overall record of 12W-6D-8L through 26 matches is still respectable, and it's important to keep this recent run in perspective. This isn't a total collapse; it's a cold spell where a team that was winning close games has started drawing or narrowly losing them instead. Goals are going in at both ends, and Chicago simply isn't finding the extra one they need to close matches out.
For a club that looked to be building massive momentum in mid-August, the challenge now is straightforward. They need to either tighten up defensively or find one more goal in matches to turn a point into three.