Chicago Fire FC is a professional soccer team in the United States . FC stands for football club. Soccer is called football in much of the world. The team competes in the Eastern Conference of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top soccer league in the United States and Canada . The team plays its home games at Soldier Field in Chicago .
The Chicago Fire joined MLS in 1998. The team won a championship in its first season, defeating D.C. United in the MLS Cup final. That same year, Chicago won the U.S. Open Cup, an annual tournament open to amateur and professional soccer clubs. In 2000, the Fire returned to the MLS Cup final, losing to the champion Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City ). Chicago won the U.S. Open Cup again that year.
In 2003, the Chicago Fire won the Supporters’ Shield as the MLS team with the best regular season record. That year, the club reached the MLS Cup final again but lost to the San Jose Earthquakes . The Fire took home the U.S. Open Cup again in 2003, a feat the team repeated in 2006.
In 1999 and 2004, the Fire advanced to the semifinals of the CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football) Champions Cup, an annual tournament among that region’s best professional clubs. The tournament was renamed the Champions League in 2008. The Fire added FC to the team name after the 2019 season.
