The Chicago Fire were not among the U-18/19 teams listed on the recently-released schedule for the upcoming U.S. Soccer Development Academy season.
A club spokesperson confirmed the Fire will not field a team, but they do plan to have a team next season. U.S. Soccer approved the Fire’s decision.
The academy season begins in late August and parallels a school year calendar. The only other Major League Soccer teams without U-18/19 teams this season are FC Cincinnati, Minnesota and Los Angeles FC.
Cincinnati joined the league this year, so the club’s academy is in its infancy. LAFC is in its second year of existence and Minnesota is in its third year, but according to a release from the USSDA website, both clubs began their academies at younger age groups, built them up each year and are expanding to U-16/17 this season.
It does leave some of the players in limbo until they find another club to play for, but the number of players affected is small, which is part of the reasoning for not fielding the team this year. The Fire helped find solutions for the players affected. For example, Mitar Mitrovic, the son of Fire assistant coach Marko Mitrovic, is playing for the Indiana Fire Academy, which keeps him under the Fire umbrella.
Elsewhere in the Fire Academy, a U-16 team has been added for the first time. That means despite the loss of the U-18/19 team, the academy will still house a similar number of players.
FC United and Sockers FC are Chicagoland clubs based in the suburbs that also play in the USSDA and will be fielding U-18/19 teams this season.
Goalkeeper Damian Las is a notable prospect among that group. He was called into the United States under-17 national team as recently as May for the Concacaf under-17 championship. He was the primary starter for that team, which qualified for the U-17 World Cup. Las turns 18 in April and is too old to play for the U-16/17 team.
The Fire Academy made the Development Academy playoffs at all three levels (U-15, U-16/17 and U-18/19) last season. Only four other academies can make that claim: Toronto FC, Montreal Impact, Seattle Sounders and the Philadelphia Union.
The Fire currently have five homegrowns under contract, including Djordje Mihailovic, who represented the U.S. national team at the Gold Cup. Mihailovic was previously part of a Fire team that won the highest age group, which was then called U-17/18, of the Development Academy playoffs in the 2014-15 season.
That team included four other current pros: Collin Fernandez, Cam Lindley, Andrew Gutman and Ryan Sierakowski.
Fernandez signed as a Fire homegrown and now is in the USL Championship with Saint Louis FC.
Lindley had his homegrown rights traded by the Fire to Orlando City. There, Lindley made three appearances in 2018, but has since been loaned to Memphis in the USL Championship.
Gutman spurned the Fire to sign with Scottish giants Celtic FC earlier this year, but he couldn’t get a work permit. Last week, the Fire traded Gutman’s homegrown rights to FC Cincinnati, which acquired him on loan from Celtic.
Sierakowski was a first-round pick of the Portland Timbers (No. 23 overall) in this year’s draft and has been playing with Timbers 2 in the USL Championship.
To go from producing five pros and winning a national title to not fielding a team five years later is a stark contrast.