Chicago Fire Chases Fifth Crown and Place Among the U.S. Open Cup Immortals
Gregg Berhalter’s Chicago Fire are in line to potentially become the first MLS side to win five Open Cups – thus joining heroes of yesteryear like Bethlehem Steel, Maccabi LA and the Fall River Rovers.
The Chicago Fire stand at the precipice of Open Cup history.
Today, in 2025 – the 110th edition of the country’s oldest and most historic soccer tournament, and the 28th year of MLS’ comparatively short life – the honor of having been named five-time Champions remains the exclusive domain of clubs from the deep past. But the Fire, of MLS, a four-time winner whose last title came back in 2006, now stand on the cusp of that rarefied air.
Before the flash and buzz of today’s MLS, there was soccer in this country. It had its hard times to be sure, but it survived in booms and busts through the early years of the last century to this very bright, shining here and now. The Open Cup, formerly known as the National Challenge Cup, being handed out to the best team in the land every year beginning in 1914 is the hard evidence of a country with deep-lying soccer traditions and heritage.
First Forged in Steel
The first club to claim five titles was Bethlehem Steel – the Pennsylvania outfit widely regarded as the first Super Club of American soccer. Playing at their Steel Athletic Field, this country’s first soccer-specific stadium, built long before any concrete was poured in Columbus, Ohio in 1998, they were the power-team of the Teens and 1920s.
The squad was built around the bulk and influence (and dollars) of the company of the same name that dominated shipbuilding and steel-making – a superpower in global commerce.
Fall River’s Bert Patenaude (stripes) leaps for a ball against Bethlehem Steel in the Open Cup
They won the first of their five Open Cups in 1915, sparked by the energy and talent of Bob Millar. This was a man known as much for his willingness to brawl (and his aptitude at doing so) as he was for scoring goals. Later inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame, he scored the Steel’s second in a 3-1 win over Brooklyn Celtic in that year’s Final.
Millar would go on to win four Open Cup titles as a player (with three different clubs) before coaching the first Team USA to play in a World Cup to a third-place, semifinal finish (best, still, all these years on).
Bethlehem Steel soon won three more Open Cups (1916, 1918 and 1919) and sealed the last of their quintet in 1926 before shuttering in 1930 as a result, at least in part, of the era’s so-called Soccer Wars.
PA’s Bethlehem Steel blazed a trail in American soccer
Fall River’s Finest
Now’s a good time to talk about Fall River, Massachusetts. The same immigrant-heavy city that sent a side to the 1916 ‘Revolver’ Final, was home to another club that would go on to win five Open Cups.
The first of those titles for Fall River (who would at times wear the various names of Fall River Marksmen/New York Yankees/New Bedford Whalers) came in 1924 (the mill city in southern Massachusetts also had a team win the Open Cup back-to-back in 1917 and 1918).
Fall River Marksmen with the Dewar Cup (the original Open Cup trophy)
Fall River’s remaining Open Cup titles came in 1927 and 1930 (again under the name the Marksmen), 1931 (as the New York Yankees) and, again, in 1932 as the New Bedford Whalers. The club, under its various names, boasted, in addition to Patenaude and Gonsalves, some of the best players of the era. Men like Archie Stark, Alex McNab and Fleming too.
Many decades would pass between the early days of Bethlehem and Fall River glory and the next five-time Open Cup winner – but no less light should shine on the giants of those 1970s and early Eighties known as Maccabi Los Angeles. The story is too long to tell here (and too amazing not to read all about, so you cando so here). But this team, the only West Coast five-time winner, was founded by Jewish immigrants, some of them Holocaust survivors, and featured defender and Daytime Emmy Award winning actor Eric Braeden, who went by his given name Hans-Jörg Gudegast when playing.
One of the best of the Maccabees’ winning era was Benny Binshtock. A player of grace and power, who would later go on to become a toy designer, starred on the bumpy pitch at the Jackie Robinson Stadium that Maccabi called home. “You could put him [Binshtock] anywhere on the field and he could turn any game around,” said Braeden, famous for his decades-long turn playing Victor Newman on the soap opera The Young and the Restless.
Braeden and Binshtock both – and a number of their winning teammates – were VIP guests at the El Trafico derby in the 2022 Open Cup and again at the 2024 Open Cup Final, won by LAFC.
Benny Binshtock (left) and the Dewar/Open Cup trophy in the 1970s
Members of Maccabi LA were honored during the 2022 Open Cup
Two years after the Maccabees won their last title in 1981, the NASL collapsed under its own bloat and many of that league’s players found themselves back in the Open Cup once again. There they helped keep the game alive during U.S. soccer’s so-called Dark Days.
And that leads us up to 1996 and the founding of MLS.
Chicago Fire? Could Be
And among the surviving eight-club field of MLS sides through to the Quarterfinals in this year’s Open Cup, the Chicago Fire are the only four-time winner and thus the only team able to reach the mountaintop of a fifth crown.
Fans of the early Fire will remember the club’s first Open Cup triumph fondly. It formed half of an MLS League-Cup Double they won in their first year as a competing club in 1998. The game was played in driving wind and rain on October 30, just five days after the Fire beat D.C. United in the decider of that year’s MLS campaign at the Rose Bowl in sunny Pasadena.
“It came down to little details,” Klopas said. “In the end it’s down to us making a couple plays. And the rest is history. Guys in that team hated to lose and Bob [Bradley, the then Fire coach] made sure everyone bought into what we were doing and that the balance was right,”
Fire Dream Team of 2023
Three years after that triumph, the 2003 Final was played at the Meadowlands and it needed a late and lone goal from Damani Ralph to see the Fire pip the MetroStars to our historic trophy. That year’s Chicago Fire was one of the best teams ever assembled in MLS – with the likes of Ante Razov, DaMarcus Beasley, Carlos Bocanegra, Jim Curtin and Zach Thornton between the posts.
A fourth Open Cup title for the Fire, in the tight space of just eight years, came in 2006. They weren’t to know it at the time, but it would also be their last for (at least) 19 years. It was a totally revamped team from 2003, with many of the club’s stars jettisoned – but a 3-1 win over Landon Donovan and Cobi Jones’ LA Galaxy in Bridgeview, Illinois brought another star for a proud Fire organization.
The Fire of today, starting slowly but improving in MLS Eastern Conference play – and coached by former USMNT boss Gregg Berhalter, have the chance to capture the spirit of those old glory days. They opened their 2025 Open Cup campaign with a Round of 32 rout of USL Championship (Division II) side Detroit City FC and a road win in the next round against fellow MLS outfit New England Revolution.
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