Chicago Fire head coach Gregg Berhalter believes his side will see “where we are” as a team when they take on 2025 MLS Cup champions Inter Miami on Wednesday.
The Fire entered the World Cup break in strong form as three consecutive wins saw them move up to third in the Eastern Conference.
Chicago also made a huge addition to their squad during the break, with Robert Lewandowski joining as a free agent from Barcelona.
However, Hugo Cuypers, the current top scorer in MLS this season, is close to joining Liga MX side CF Monterrey.
Nevertheless, Berhalter believes Cuypers’ exit could allow Chicago to improve their team as a whole, while he also praised the early impact of Lewandowski.
“We want to be a club that looks after our players. We also want to be a club that is shrewd with our decision-making,” said Berhalter.
“Hugo came to us and expressed his desire to go elsewhere, and for us, it was about finding value in that deal.
“We think it gives us some flexibility now. For us, it’s now about looking to strengthen the team in other areas.
“We’ll see on Wednesday where we are [as a team]. We have a lot of respect for Inter Miami. For us, we just want to keep getting better.
“One thing I can tell you about Robert is [he has a] tremendous work rate. You think about a guy coming into the team, and he was jet-lagged all last week, yet he’s pushing the team in training and doing work after.
“You can see why he is a pro and why he has scored more goals than anybody across Europe in the last 15 years, because he’s an absolute pro.”
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— Chicago Fire FC (@ChicagoFire) July 16, 2026
Miami are second in the East, five points ahead of the Fire after stringing together four consecutive wins before the break.
The Herons will likely be without Lionel Messi and Rodrigo De Paul after they featured for Argentina in Sunday’s World Cup final.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Inter Miami – Luis Suarez
In Inter Miami’s final match prior to the break, Luis Suarez scored three times in a win over the Philadelphia Union.
It was Suarez’s second career MLS hat-trick as he joined Messi (two) as the only players with multiple regular-season hat-tricks for the Herons.
Chicago Fire – Robert Lewandowski
New Fire signing Lewandowski has scored at least 14 league goals in each of his last 15 club seasons with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
In Chicago history, there have been 10 individual seasons of a player recording 14 or more regular-season goals.
MATCH PREDICTION – INTER MIAMI WIN
Inter Miami entered the break on a four-match winning streak, outscoring opponents 17-9 in those matches. Only two teams have seen more than 26 goals scored in a span of four matches within a single regular season in MLS history: the Colorado Rapids in 1998 (two overlapping spans) and Miami Fusion in 2001.
Chicago have 26 points through 14 matches this season, their second-most at this stage of a season in club history (27 in 2001).
The Fire won their last three league matches before the break and are looking for their first four-match league winning streak since June-July 2017.
Chicago recorded a 5-3 win at Miami in the last meeting between the sides last September. Four of the 10 all-time meetings between the sides have featured at least five goals, with the teams averaging 3.6 combined goals per match.
OPTA WIN PROBABILITY
Inter Miami – 46.3%
Draw – 22.4%
Chicago Fire – 31.3%
