Chicago Fire FC midfielder Brian Gutiérrez used to be one of the kids in the stands at SeatGeek Stadium, admiring the 2017 team — the last Fire team to reach the postseason.
Fast forward to 2020 and Gutiérrez graduated from the Chicago Fire Academy to the first team as a 16-year-old. He’s been on the Fire ever since.
Playoff success eluded both him and the team until Wednesday. It was Gutiérrez, a Berwyn native, who got things started with his 10th goal of the season, setting the tone for a 3-1 win over Orlando City in the Eastern Conference wild-card game.
“It was a good emotion, an emotion that I’ve been waiting for,” Gutiérrez said. “It was an incredible feeling because I was once in those stands. I always wanted to do that.
“Doing it in person and living it was honestly incredible.”
The win sends the Fire to the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, a best-of-three series against top-seeded Philadelphia Union. The Fire opens the round at 4:30 p.m. Sunday at Subaru Park in Philadelphia.
Photos: Chicago Fire defeats Orlando City 3-1 in MLS wild-card game
The Fire dominated the run of play in the first half but was unable to dent the net. That all changed when Gutiérrez scored on a feed from Philip Zinckernagel and Jonathan Dean in the 48th minute to get the Fire on the board.
The Fire’s leading scorer, Hugo Cuypers, added a pair of goals.
Gutiérrez has been in and out of the starting lineup for the past month and a half, but he just kept working.
“I don’t really take it personally,” Gutiérrez said. “It’s just working every day and delivering. Whether it’s starting or off the bench, I want to show my qualities for the team and for the fans.”
First-year coach Gregg Berhalter has been impressed with how Gutiérrez stayed focused while his role has been in flux.
“You can think that a player will get dejected and lose motivation, but every time he came in he made an impact and he kept focused on being positive and kept training hard,” Berhalter said. “That’s why he’s making the impact he is (Wednesday), because of that.”
Gutiérrez was in the audience as a 14-year-old in 2017. He had plenty of conversations about his deep roots to the club when Berhalter took over as coach and director of football after last season.
“It was very important for him for the team to have a good year,” Berhalter said. “He’s focused on his personal goals, but he so badly wants this club to be successful.”
When Gutiérrez finally broke the ice, he went with his teammates right to the fans sitting where he once sat to share the moment with them.
“They’re my people, coming from the same background,” Gutiérrez said. “I do it for them. It’s honestly a great connection that we have.”
The Fire played well against Orlando City during the season, so Berhalter had a plan in place. The highest-scoring team in Fire history was going to put the pressure on early and often. The thought was that it would wear Orlando City down in the second half, which is exactly what happened.
The Fire tied a season high and set a new club postseason record with 25 shots.
“We made a little bit of an adjustment at halftime, trying to get behind them a little bit, trying to put them under pressure,” Berhalter said. “Second half, we came out flying again. We knew we could have an effect on them cumulatively, that we wore them down.”
Cuypers had two goals in the second half, but he and Gutiérrez had great connections in the first half that just didn’t lead to points. He was happy to see Gutiérrez finally get his playoff moment.
“(Gutiérrez) is quality and those balls, the situation was not right to score in the first half,” Cuypers said. “For him to get the goal got the whole team going, and we kept going.”
The Fire will be back on the pitch Sunday after having won their first playoff game since 2009. It’s just another step to where Berhalter envisions the club going in the future.
“We know it won’t be done overnight, but we want to put a type of club on the field that all of Chicago can admire,” Berhalter said. “We hope people come to the stadium to watch us play and we hope that it builds excitement across the city.”
Paul Johnson is a freelance reporter for The Chicago Tribune.
