MLS releases 2024 22 Under 22 presented by BODYARMOR rankings:
MLS released its 2024 22 Under 22 presented by BODYARMOR rankings, which ranks the top 22 players in Major League Soccer under the age of 22 – as voted on by an expert panel of select MLS staff, MLS Season Pass talent and Club technical staff. This season, Inter Miami CF midfielder Diego Gómez topped the list.
Chicago Fire name Berhalter director of football & head coach:
Chicago Fire FC have hired Gregg Berhalter as their director of football and head coach. Berhalter, the Columbus Crew's sporting director and head coach from 2013-18, who most recently served as US men's national team head coach, becomes the 10th full-time head coach in club history. He'll oversee all aspects of the Fire's sporting operations – including the first team, MLS NEXT Pro affiliate Chicago Fire FC II and the academy – while reporting directly to owner and chairman Joe Mansueto.
Chicago have been waiting for this one. In hindsight, 2024 feels like the year they stopped trying to save an era of the team that didn’t want to be saved. They finally found a new home for Xherdan Shaqiri, they parted ways with longtime sporting director Georg Heitz, and they mostly stayed put this summer, rather than rush out to make yet another bad long-term signing they’d be stuck with. It seems, barring a remarkable turnaround, they were always inclined to take on a year of pain with a roster in need of some work and a head coach in what became an extended caretaker role.
What’s one more year of pain though? The Fire have only made the playoffs twice since the end of the 2009 season. They haven’t been back to the playoffs at all since 2017. They’re going to finish last in the East this year and no one is surprised.
Expectations will be different next year though. Look, I know, people on the internet get…how do I put this nicely…extremely weird in an incredibly off-putting way that makes me wonder if I even like sports sometimes about Gregg Berhalter. But he’s objectively a successful MLS head coach with a ton of experience. In six seasons as head coach of the Crew from 2013 to 2018, Columbus made the playoffs every year but his first season in charge and the 2016 season following their run to the MLS Cup Final in 2015. He did well with an organization that didn’t have the spending power of other big teams around the league.
Now, he gets to operate in a different tax bracket. The Fire were third in MLS in salary this season, dropping around $12 million for forward Hugo Cuypers in February and around $7.5 million for Shaqiri in 2022. Money hasn’t been an issue in Chicago. Smart and effective roster building has.
That’s actually the biggest concern going forward. No one should be worried about Berhalter’s coaching ability at the MLS level. Even with how little “coaching” actually matters at this level, he should still be among the more effective coaches among his peers. But Berhalter is also taking over as the club’s “Director of Football.”
We don’t see the head coach/chief soccer officer dual role often these days. That’s true across the sport now, not just in MLS. And there are very good reasons for that. The small advantages that make one scouting department more effective than another need a ton of work to actually manifest. The rapid growth of analytics and a more global market have made it harder and more important than ever to keep up with the latest best practices in roster building. Otherwise, you’ll get left behind.
It’s not inherently bad Berhalter will get the final say over who the Fire go after. But he’ll need excellent people around him to make sure that the processes that lead to that final say are actually effective. It’s not a given the organization gets that right. Having head coaching responsibilities in addition to roster-building responsibilities could simply be too much responsibility now.
The Fire are taking a big swing though. And they’ll enter this new era with the flexibility to add new and critical pieces. Berhalter’s first major job as Director of Football will be to add two new Designated Players. With a halfway decent supporting cast already in place, two elite players could easily bring about a return to the playoffs in 2025. With cash to burn and Berhalter in place, there’s a good chance they get those signings right. At least as good a chance as there’s been in a long time.
From there, money, plus a revamped infrastructure, could lead to even more than just a playoff appearance. Chicago have been a sleeping giant for a long while now. Maybe this is what finally sets their alarm off.
- Charlie Boehm explored why Diego Gómez topped the 22 Under 22 list.
- Who were the biggest 22 Under 22 snubs?
- Here's the 22 Under 22 Best XI.
- Matt Doyle explained what we learned from Chicago’s 2024 season and from St. Louis CITY SC’s too.
- Taylor Twellman discussed Inter Miami’s quest for MLS history.
- Here are the young players who stepped up in Matchday 36 and 37.
- Tyler Wolff provided this week’s Energy Moment of the Matchday presented by Celsius.
- Power Rankings.
Good luck out there. Try something different.
