The question about player which "most embodies the club" in that poll was just a popularity contest. Jesse Marsh was my pick, with Armas a close second. And I still don't know what a football club has to do with the Chicago Fire.
"and I still don't know what a football club has to do with the Chicago Fire". It's the sport that the Chicago Fire play. The British coined the term soccer to shorten Association Football. Each are interchangeable. SC, FC, both mean the same thing. i'm German so I prefer Fussball or Football. Others may prefer soccer. But to your original question, it refers to the sport that is played by the Chicago Fire.
The league itself calls it soccer, and it has been a soccer club for all but one year of the team's existence. I would really prefer to leave the Europosing to the Johnny Come Lately types in Austin and Charlotte and get back to the true club name.
What a dumb comment. What do The Bears have to do with football? Well, maybe in Boys town. What do The Bulls have to do with basketball? Shit, they don't even have hands. They would travel every time, having four legs. What do The Blackhawks have to do with hockey? Not very many Native Americans/First Nation People on skates, forchecking dudes into the boards. What do The White Sox have to do baseball? Well, okay they actually wear white socks.
Club? Take that europoser nomenclature with you, pal? I don’t “support a club.” I’m a fan of a single-entity soccer franchise thank you very much.
I think I can solve this argument, and make a splash in the rebranding landscape. I hereby dub our franchise The Shikaakwa Embers Running and Kicking Society.
How was Gaston Puerari not included as the Fire player who most embodied the spirit of Chicago? I mean the dude had kinda big shoulders and was a HOG BUTCHER! Hello??? Do I have to spell this out?
We are not in England or Germany. The team (club?) is in Chicago where the Bears have played football for a quite a long time. If you go to see the Fire do you really think in your head "I'm going to a football game"? The Fire play a game in a soccer league and should be called a soccer club or team or society or whatever. Did you ever wonder why MLS isn't MLF? It is because it would be confusing as hell in this country and as a matter of fact the game is called soccer here to differentiate it from football. Why was the word "football" added into the team name after 20 years? It is to pander to Spanish speaking and/or Euro folks like yourself. Did it work? Are folks more likely to take a look and go "yeah, the Fire are not legit because they have FC in the name!" I really don't know, but from my perspective it has the opposite effect. It is a superficial and misleading change to add FC.
Well, there are teams in Canada, so that would be MILF! "Well, of course, I am a of MILF(s)!" Yes, THAT would be confusing! Major International League of Football. I likes it! It would put an entire new meaning on F_C_ Dallas, that's for sure.
It's cute that you talk about the Bears "playing football." Admittedly, I am no NFL fan, but my friends who are Bears fans really don't accuse the Bears of playing football. "Attempting" to play, perhaps.
Yes, when I take my friends to a Fire game, they almost always say we are going to a "football" match. We are capable of understanding that there can be two things called "football" (well, four, when you include Australian Rules Football and the overwhelming awesomeness that is Gaelic Football)? It really is not that difficult.
You do understand that, like it or not, 12 teams in MLS (or, if you prefer M(i)LF) have "FC" in their names? Of those 12, 9 have NFL teams, 2 have CFL teams and only Austin FC does not have a professional pointyball team (and they have yet to play a game). It does not seem to cause much confusion.
By the way, I agree that the "FC" is stupid (I was not thrilled with the "SC" either), but I find your arguments rather funny.
I'm not sure that it's necessarily confusing to anyone on here or even that many sports fans in general. There's a whole Ted Lasso joke show on Apple TV+ playing on this stupidity. Those of us who have followed American soccer for years understand the origins of shortening "Association Football" to differentiate from "Rugby Football" by early 20th century Brits. Whatever. Football/Soccer : potatos/potAtos. My beef is that the team wasn't born a "Football Club." We were just the Chicago Fire, and then we became the Chicago Fire Soccer Club. To then go and change to a "Football Club" reeks of change for changes sake, Europosing and chasing insecure fans who insist on calling it football so they won't be confused with us dummy Americans who got saddled with calling it soccer by the very Brits who now look down their noses at the term. The Fire are now the only MLS team to have been a "SC" and intentionally change to an "FC." Why? It's an aggravating change that feels insincere, insecure and inauthentic.
This is basically how I feel. Really don't like it, but at the end of the day it's a pretty unimportant change and I won't waste my energy caring for it.
We’re still talking about Europosing all these years later Never mind that the name “Fire” screams of MLS 1.0/skaterboi/Lacross team names from the 90’s. I mean, how did we avoid Rhythm and still end up with a name that seems like a Nike marketing douchebag’s wet dream? “Ya see, “Fire”- it’s like, the kids will love it because fire is HOT” - imaginary Nike douchebag. Seriously y’all, FC, Soccer Club- it doesn’t matter. We’re the Chicago Fire, any and everything after that is insignificant.
I couldn't disagree more. The Fire was a complete departure from what was going on with team branding wise in the 90s.